LIBRARY

THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA

SANTA BARBARA

PRESENTED BY

MR. GEORGE COBB.

MORE POT-POURRI

FROM A SURREY GARDEN

MORE POT-POURRI

FROM A SURREY GARDEN

BY

MRS. C. W. EARLE

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

LONDON : MACMILLAN & CO., LTD.
1899

All rights reserved

COPYRIGHT, 1899, BY
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

J&le&sant

TO THE READERS OF

'POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN'
I DEDICATE THIS BOOK

'Reading good Books of Morality is a little fiat
and dead. Observing our faults in others is some-
times improper for our case; tut the test Receipt
(best, I say, to work and test to take) is the

Admonition of a Friend.'

BACON.

CONTENTS

SEPTEMBER

PAGE

Reasons for writing another Pot-Pourri ' — Advice of friends

— Criticisms grave and gay — Return home after three
months abroad — Disappointment with dry garden — King-
fisher— Sedum spectabile and insects — Gardening — Cook-
ing 1

OCTOBER

Gardening — Echeverias — Ignorance about bulbs — Gossamer
time and insects — The East Coast — A new rockery —
Oxalis floribunda as a vegetable — Previous lPot-Pourris'

— Cooking receipts, various — Journey to Frankfort in
1897 — Cronberg — Boeeklin's Todten-Insel — Jewish Cem-
etery— Goethe's house — Staedal Art Institute — German
treatment of tuberculosis .47

NOVEMBER

Present of 'The Botanist'— Echeveria and Euphorbia splen-
dens — Cowper on greenhouses — Cultivation of greenhouse
plants — Bookseller at Frankfort — Dr. Wallace on Lilies

— Receipts — Winter in the country — The sorting of old
letters . 86

DECEMBER

Lonely eyenings and more papers — Figs from France —
Hornbeams and Weeping Hornbeams — Wire netting
round small fruit trees — Damsons — Roman Hyacinths
and Paper- white Narcissus — Effect of coloured glass on
plants — Use of corrugated iron — Lord Lyndoch — Culti-
vation or Mistletoe — A list of plants — Anniversary
present - giving — Christmas decorations — Acetylene gas

— The old learning to live alone — Receipts . . 119

(vii)

viii CONTENTS

JANUARY, 1899

Difficulties of growing Daphne indica — Journey last year to
Ireland — Cutting down and re -planting trees— Apples —
Skimmed milk — Manure heaps — Winter Honeysuckle —
Botanical Gardens in Dublin — Botticelli's drawings —
Tissot's Bible — Rippingille's patent stove — Blue flowers
— ' Snowdrop-time ' — ' The Sun-children's Budget ' —
Floral notes from 'The Scotsman' — Receipts . . 154

FEBRUARY

Mistresses and servants — Difficulty of getting servants —
Girls instead of boys — Registry Offices — The employ-
ments that do not take up characters — Early rising —
Baron Humboldt — Coverings for larders — Blackbeetles —
Children's nurses — Ignorance of young married women —
Some natural history books — Forcing blossoming branches
— Horticultural Show — Letter from San Moritz — Re-
ceipts 187

MARCH

Confessions about diet — Cures for rheumatism — Effects of
tea- drinking — Sparing animal life a bad reason for vege-
tarianism— The Berlin foot-race — Mrs. Crow in Edin-
burgh— Bagehot on luxury — A word about babies —
German and English nurseries — Sir Richard Thome
Thorne on raw milk — The New Education — Difficulty of
understanding young children — Gardening — Cooking . 220

APRIL

Newspapers on cremation — More about Suffolk — Maund on
flowers that close — Asparagus growing on the seacoast
— Peacock feathers for firescreens — Dining-room tables

— Petroleum tubs in gardens — Neglect of natural his-
tory—Cactuses again — Old mills — Mr. Burbidge on
sweet-smelling leaves — Florist Auriculas — Seed -sowing

— Kitchen garden — Poultry . . . . . .274

CONTENTS

MAT

The 'French Sugar Pea' — The 'Westminster Gazette' on
Tulips — The legend of the Crcrwn Imperial — Article on
' Sacred Trees and Flowers ' — Peeling of Poppies — Cook-
ing receipts — Books on Florence — Mr. Gladstone on
travelling — Journey to Italy— Arrival at Arcetri . . 306

JUNE

What I saw from my window at Arcetri — Fireflies — Cy-
presses— Youthful memories in the 'Cascine' — Deodar in
Cloister of San Marco — Fete at Santa Margharita — Villas
— Gardens — Want of colour in Tuscany at midsummer —
Slight allusion to picture galleries — The cabinet of Cardi-
nal Leopoldo di Medici — June 24th in Florence — Botani-
cal Garden — Silence of birds and summer sounds . . 335

JULY

A night journey — Dawn in the train — Passing Chambe'ri —
A water-cure near Geneva — Amiel and his 'Journal In-
time' — The New Museum at Geneva — M. Correvon's
garden — An afternoon at Bile — Boecklin again — Cron-
berg and the ' Palmengarten ' — Planting shrubs to secure
an especial effect — The cultivation of Alpine Strawberries
— Receipts 375

AUGUST

A Horticultural Show in August — The old Chelsea Physic
Garden — Towns out of season — Flat-hunting in London
— Overcrowding flats — Marble better than tiles — Cur-
tains and blinds — A long note on girls and young
women . . . 402

INDEX ... .449

MORE POT-POURRI

SEPTEMBER

Reasons fori writing another ' Pot-Pourri' — Advice of friends —
Criticisms grave and gay — Return home after three months
abroad — Disappointment with dry garden— Kingfisher — Sedum
spectabile and insects — Gardening — Cooking.

September 1st, 1898. — It is now a year and a half since
I finished my first book, and the public have been almost
as appreciative and generous in their praise of it as my
nieces were. Kind letters of all sorts have poured in,
and I have been overwhelmed with suggestions about the
future, and what I should or should not do. Some have
said — and I admit that these, in all friendliness, are the
most earnest in their heartfelt appeals — that I should
rest on my laurels and write no more. They urge that
a second book always falls flat. If on the same subject
as the first, it is generally a failure. If on a new sub-
ject, it is apt to be outside the writer's experience. And
then they quote several incontestable examples which
jump to the recollection of everybody. I really agree
with this view of the case up to the point of not acting
upon it. Nothing can ever bear being done a second
time. This is one of the sadnesses of life, and I do not
for a moment anticipate that No. 2 can please in the
same kind of way as did No. 1. The method not
being new, my readers will know pretty well what to
expect; and this, probably, will immensely sharpen their

2 MORE POT-POURRI

critical judgment. Then there were those who said and
wrote— and need I state that they are the flatterers who
come most home to the author's heart, as is but natural?
— 'We have read your book; we like it; we have found
it useful and helpful, entertaining or suggestive. Cannot
you give us more? ' To these I answered : ' Give me
time and I will try. ' The result was that throughout
the last year I have been making various notes about my
life, things I saw and things I did, exactly as they oc-
curred. These very likely will prove less interesting
than former notes, which were more or less connected
with the life that was behind me.

One newspaper had it that I must have a very gooa
memory. As a matter of fact, I have no memory at all,
but from my youth I have kept, more or less continu-
ously, commonplace books — a jumble of all sorts of
things as I came across them in my very desultory read-
ing. These notes were often so carelessly kept as not
even to acknowledge where I stole the thought that gave
me pleasure. This accounts for my having quotations
at hand. Another reviewer kindly said that I had a
'marked grace of style.' My dear old mother used to
say she never considered a compliment worth having
that was not totally undeserved ! I never had the slight-
est idea of possessing any style at all. But what is
style! It is a weary topic when so much is said about
'getting style' (like 'getting religion'). Schopenhauer's
remarks on the subject are worth noticing. He writes:
' There is no quality of style that can be got by reading
writers who possess it. But if the qualities exist in us
— exist, that is to say, potentially — we can call them forth
and bring them into consciousness. We can learn the
purposes to which they can be put. We can be strength-
ened in an inclination to use them, or get courage to do
so. The only way in which reading can form style is by

SEPTEMBER 3

teaching us the use to which we can put our own natural
gifts. We must have these gifts before we can learn the
use of them. Without them reading teaches us nothing.'
One friend wrote : ' I should have liked the book
still better if the moral and domestic reflections had been
jumbled up with the rest, instead of being put, like an
appendix, at the end.' With this I entirely agree, but my
judgment in the matter was overruled by others. The
most general criticism has been that the various subjects
in the book are not kept enough apart. Some asked
' Won't you write a cookery book alone? or a gardening
book alone?' I could only say that I am no specialist.
Dozens of such books exist, and are much better than
any I could write. I am and must remain an ignorant
amateur. My mind only works, as I said before, on the
lines of collecting knowledge, sweet and bitter, as I walk
along life's way. What I have I can give, but I can
neither create nor imagine. The accusations of the sud-
den jumps from gardening to surgery, or from cooking
to art, which astonished my readers, are perfectly true.
But are not these violent and sudden contrasts a marked
characteristic of modern life ? Do we not, many of us,
any morning, go from our letters or newspapers — con-
taining, perhaps, the most tragic human stories, affect-
ing ourselves or those we love — to the ordering of the
dinner for the friend who is to come in the evening, or
seeing that the carriage or the fly is not forgotten for
the guest who is leaving before noon? Such is life. So
my months must remain quite as varied as before. It is
sad to have to repeat the un-English name of lPot-
Pourri,' which annoyed so many and was never very
satisfactory to myself; but this book in no way aims at
being more than a continuation of the first, a kind of
second volume, a giving of more to those who ask for it.
The word 'pot-pourri' is so generally accepted in Eng-

4 MORE POT-POURRI

land to mean a sweet and pleasant mixture, that we do
not realize that the original word meant a mixed stew, as
do its synonyms of 'hotch-potch' and lolla podrida,' a
favourite Spanish dish consisting of a mixture of various
kinds of meat chopped fine and stewed with vegetables.

Most of the letters I received were of kindly and
affectionate appreciation. But some frankly criticised,
while others marked shortcomings. As usual, however,
in such cases, perfectly incompatible qualities were re-
quired. For instance, most of my gardening friends
were disappointed at the information about gardening
being so elementary, telling them little they did not
know. They very likely overrated what I had to tell
them, but they entirely missed the point of my omitting
to make my information as detailed and special as
I could have done — first, because I referred them to
real gardening books, and secondly, because I wanted
what I did tell to be particularly addressed to beginners
with small gardens who wished to do their best, but had
little time to spend in the study of other books. On the
other hand, the ignorant amateurs, for whom it was
specially written, mournfully complained that it still did
not begin enough at the beginning. To these I always
answered that Mr. Robinson must have realized this dif-
ficulty, as some years ago he reprinted the 'Amateur
Gardener,7 by Mrs. London (Fredk. Warne & Co.) , which
is full of this elementary information, and to be had
from any bookseller for the sum of ninepence.

A third difficulty was the slavish admirer, who, in
all soils and even with different climates, said : ' I have
strictly carried out your instructions, and utter failure has
been the result.' I wish once more to reiterate that
anything I say, both in the last volume and in this, with
regard to plant life, is merely the result of my own per-
sonal experience. All that I state is by way of sug-

SEPTEMBER 5

gestion, not by any means as a law to be carried out at
all times and in all places. Several letters of approval I
received from working gardeners gave me great pleasure,
and one said that he found the book ' very bright and
holding.7 This seems to me a most expressive word. An-
other complaint came from a Londoner, representing the
opinion of the inhabitants of towns. He was in exact
contrast to the gardener -friend in the suburbs and in the
country. He complained bitterly of the long lists of
plants, the many details about gardening, and asked
pitifully if this part might not have been relegated
to an appendix, suggesting that this would make the
book much more readable.

One man, who professed to be no gardener at all, said
his leading idea in gardening was to dismiss the under-
gardener. This is a very common theory with the master
of the house, who thinks gardens can be well kept
very much underhanded. As a rule, the best gardens are
those where the master of the house superintends the
gardening himself.

A woman friend, who dislikes both garden books and
gardening, wrote: ' Notices of gardening books might,
for the sake of the village idiot, for whom everyone
writes, have been put in a chapter quite at the end.
"Fat," as the actors call it, should come at the begin-
ning of a book to encourage the reader.7 Perhaps she
was not wrong, for I believe, so far as I can gather from
the letters, that the non- gardening people like my book
best — gardeners, after all, being, as they are the first to
acknowledge, one-idea'd. And yet no, it cannot have
been really so, as by far the most genuine and sympa-
thetic letters I have received have been from real garden
lovers — the sick, the old, the expatriated, all joining in
one paean of praise over the soul -satisfy ing occupation
of gardening.

6 MORE POT-POURRI

A few of the London booksellers were rather amusing
on the subject, and I have considerable sympathy with
their opinions. One said to a friend of mine, a few
months after the book had come out, that it was going
into the sixth edition and that he 'couldn't conceive
why, as there was nothing in it.' Another shrewdly re-
marked that he called the book ' a social success, not a
literary one.' There was a vein running through several
letters which I thought perhaps accounted in some way
for the success of the book, as it proved that many peo-
ple wished to give it to someone else because they found
in it a gentle rod wherewith to scourge their neighbour.
One critic said that 'a spirit of benign and motherly ma-
terialism broods over the book ' — an expression which I
thought rather nice, as it was what I had aimed at. A
second said the book was ' full of good spirits from be-
ginning to end,' and a third discovered that 'a tone of
sadness ran through it all.'

After critics came the friends, who amusingly said:
'The book is so extraordinarily like yourself, we can hear
your voice speaking all through it.' Strangers, I am
told, who know me only by reputation or not at all,
kindly settled that it was not written by me, but by some
mysterious unknown person they could not quite hit
upon.

It is quite true, and I wish to state it again, as I did
in my first preface, that I had very real and practical
assistance from one of my nieces, who made a most effi-
cient secretary. Our method of working was simple
enough. I wrote what I wanted to say, and then dictated
it to her. In reading aloud, the more flagrant mistakes
and repetitions struck the ear quicker than the eye, as is
but natural for one more accustomed to speak than to
write. Two or three other people helped me by toning
down my crude opinions and taking out whole sentences

SEPTEMBER 7

that might have been causes of offence. It has for a
long time been a favourite theory of mine that, as people
generally write books with a vague hope that they may
be read, it is wise to consult a small number of people
typical of the public, and to be guided, without too much
self-esteem, by the opinions of these selected few. Of
course, this opens up the further discussion whether, as I
saw it well put the other day in the 'Spectator,' 'Suc-
cess with the multitude is in itself desirable, or if it is
not rather the hall-mark of a commonplace inferiority.
Who pleases foolish readers must himself be a fool. If
the general reader is, after all, quite such a fool as the
superior junta think him, is another question altogether.
But he has the marked advantage of holding the verdict
in his hands.' The only raison d'etre of ephemeral
literature is that it should be read. The writer of genius
comes under a different category. He stands on a moun-
tain-top and breathes a rarer atmosphere, and often can
only be understood from a distance. ' Bethia Hardacre '
exactly expresses this in verse:

I pray to fail, if to succeed
Means faithlessness unto my creed.

Lady Eastlake says on this point : ' Genius, with its
divine inspirations, may be left to find its way to the
admiration of the few and in the end to the acknowledg-
ment of all.' Many will remember when Mr. Quaritch
brought out Fitzgerald's translation of 'Omar Khayyam,'
disgusted at its complete failure, he threw the whole edi-
tion into a 'penny box.' Dante Eossetti found them,
and we all know the rest.

Some people said that what really pleased them most
in the book were the little bits of poetry. Considering
that not one of these was mine, the remark by way of
compliment was rather humorous. Another curious vein

8 MORE POT-POURRI

of flattery that ran through dozens of the letters was
expressive of the writers' regret that they had not
written 'Pot-Pourris' of their own, proving the general
truth of how easy everything is if we only take the
trouble to do it.

The cooking receipts caused panic in some minds and
indignation in others. One poor bachelor told his house-
keeper to try the receipt in 'Pot-Pourri ' for making a
soup. She happened to hit upon the French chefs ex-
travagant directions for making consommt and, horrified
by the numberless pounds of beef recommended, said :
4 Really, sir, it would be far cheaper to have down a
quantity of tinned soups from the Stores ! ' Another
careful mistress of her own house complained very much
of different meats, amounting to six pounds, being used
for one pie. But in her case the household consisted of
one thin brother and two thinner maids. My receipts,
of course, were jumbled together for big and little estab-
lishments, to be used at the discretion of the housewife.
A French lady writes that I make a mistake in thinking
that it is usual in France to baste chickens with butter,
and that they are much better done with the fat of
bacon, or suet, or even common lard. I myself gen-
erally roast chickens with butter, and find that people
like them very much. But, of course, only fresh butter
must be used; never that horror called ' cooking butter.'
It is true that basting them with the fat of good bacon
does make them a better colour.

In a most humorous article from that delightful
writer of the ' Pages from a Private Diary ' in the
' Cornhill,' there were several funny allusions to my
book. I quote the following as a specimen: ' While
doing ' ' my Michaelmas accounts this morning, I
found that the butter book (for we use Tom's dairy)
was half as much again as last quarter, and the reason

SEPTEMBER 9

given by the responsible Eugenia is that Mrs. Earle
protests against economy in butter. On referring to the
passage, I find that she suggests instead an economy in
meat, and I pointed this out to E.; but the butcher's
book shows no proportionate diminution. This has led
me to reflect how much more infectious extravagance is
than economy.'

One of my most complimentary letters was from an
old friend, Mrs. Roundell, asking me to allow her to
quote some of my receipts in a new cookery book she
was compiling. This has since appeared under the
name of 'A Practical Cookery Book' (Bickers & Son),
and is so excellent that it thoroughly convinces me of
my wisdom in declining to write one myself. My praise
of this book almost suggests a mutual admiration
society, as Mrs. Roundell is very complimentary to me.
She begins by thanking me for my receipts, and ends
by a quotation from lPot-Pourri' on hospitality and
housekeeping. It will be many a long year before her
own book is superseded. The receipts are clear and
economical, and its only fault seems to be that at
present it costs seven-and-sixpence.

A literary friend writes that he has a point of dissent
— 'a bit of pedantic purism. You say "chickens."
There is no such word: chicken is a plural. Hose,
hosen; chick, chicken; and in old days many more — as
house, housen; place, pleasen. A farmer's wife, at
least in the west, says correctly that she is going to feed
her chicken — meaning not one, but many.' It is diffi-
cult to know when custom asserts itself sufficiently to
change grammar, and my critic himself admits that
many of the words he quotes are obsolete. I fear I
shall hardly have the courage to say ' truss two fine
chicken ' if I come across such a phrase in a receipt.

I received very few letters on the nurse question. It

io MORE POT-POURRI

had been a good deal discussed in periodicals just before
the book came out.

An old friend, a doctor, wrote: 'Your chapter on
health I take some exception to. On the question that
starvation is a cure for most of the minor ailments of
life I agree with you, but I think you are wrong on the
subject of nurses. You may get some affection and
kindness on the part of a mother, or a sister, or a wife,
but I have always held that in really bad cases all three
make the worst possible nurses, because so few women
can really control their feelings, and where there were
great affection and grave anxiety they would be apt to
fail in some small details which might be of the utmost
importance, where a good trained nurse would not,
because she looks on the patient only as a "case,"
which, if she is a conscientious woman, it is her one
object to get well. My experience also does not tally
with yours, that the nurse is the tool of the doctor and
is bound to approve and agree with him. On the con-
trary, I think many of them, through "a little learn-
ing," think they know quite as much as, if not more
than, the doctor, and often use their own discretion (?)
as to whether they will carry out all the orders given
them. If the doctor finds out this and remonstrates, he
then makes an enemy of a person who at any time may
have an opportunity of doing him much professional
injury.7 I am quite ready to acknowledge the correct-
ness of these remarks, and if the nurse and doctor do
not work well together, any opposition on the part of the
nurse might make the situation very disagreeable for the
doctor, and vice versa. If, on the other hand, they
work extremely well together, the patient may be the
sufferer, supposing the doctor were mistaken about the
case, which does happen with men of the greatest talent.
The too literal carrying out of the doctor's orders,

SEPTEMBER n

especially with regard to medicines and sleeping-
draughts, is often very injurious to the patient. I did
not for a moment mean to imply that love and devotion
could supply the qualities that are the result of training.
But a kind of clear-sightedness and instinct that comes
from love and devotion is by no means always to be
found in the professional nurse.

I continue to quote typical letters on various subjects
as they crop up. One kind old clergyman thought so
flatteringly of my powers that he suggests that I should
'utilise the genius which has popularised your book
in some of those fields into which your book affords
glimpses — why not write on heredity?' The fact is, as
I have already said, I am not able to write a treatise on
cooking and gardening, much less could I pretend to
give the world any information on great subjects con-
nected with science ; and heredity more especially is
peculiarly buried in darkness, even for experts. He
concludes a long and interesting letter as follows : ' Some
years ago Sir F. Galton sent me a paper of inquiries
(which he was circulating among doctors) as to the
physical and psychical history of three generations of
ancestors.' This idea of Sir F. Galton 's has been a
favourite one with me for years. I have always thought
that it would be of the greatest interest in families if a
careful register were kept of people's health, diseases,
and death, so that some idea might be formed of the
general tendencies of family diseases, with their suc-
ceeding development and treatment during three or four
generations.

It seems satisfactory that a great number of the news-
paper critics gave me credit for common-sense. Some
few passages in 'Sons and Daughters' raised opposition,
but, I am bound to confess, much less than I expected.
My great disappointment was that I got so little actual

12 MORE POT-POURRI

criticism — I may even say, so little correction. In this,
I am told, I was ambitious, as most critics compose their
articles by a few quotations, and have neither time nor
inclination to really criticise. There was one excellent
exception in an interesting and friendly article in the
1 Spectator.' This critic seems to doubt, more even than
I did, the courage of parents and nurses as regards giv-
ing independence to young children. But, in proof of
the desirability of my recommendations, he quotes Ste-
venson's admirable saying with regard to a boy: 'It is
better for him to break his neck than for you to break
his spirit.' This article shows the revers de la mtdaille
so well, as regards the atmosphere of a home, that I
copy it. After approving my suggestions about giving
allowances to both girls and boys, it goes on to say :
4 The question of the frank criticism by children of their
home is more doubtful. It is, of course, better that their
dissatisfaction should, like the measles, "come out," but
what about their home manners ? Criticism is very apt
to degenerate into grumbling, and the spectacle of chil-
dren or young people grumbling about domestic arrange-
ments is not edifying. Grumbling is always rude; and
if manners make the man, it is an undoubted fact that
perfect manners are incompatible with absolute brutal
outspokenness. For instance, the wife and mother who
is trying to attain the really lofty standard aimed at in
this book cannot, of necessity, be absolutely outspoken.
If her work is to be successful, she must not hint that
any part of it is distasteful ; that is, she must conceal
some of her feelings. Surely children should not be
brought up to feel that their father and mother are the
only people they may be rude to. And if the money
argument is to be applied to the wife, it must touch the
children, too; they must not be allowed to take all the
luxuries of the house they do not pay for, and then

SEPTEMBER 13

grumble because those luxuries are not arranged as they
like best. And now that we apply this reasoning a sec-
ond time, we see that in reality it is rather an ugly argu-
ment. It is a fact, but, like other facts, such as death
and digestion, it need not be obtruded at every moment.
The woman's work may be given from love of her home;
and the children may forbear, also through love, to tell
their mother that the dinner-hour is not quite the fash-
ionable one, and "you might have remembered how I
hate that pudding." The mother will look out for her-
self and see to the tastes of her family, and will, in talks
with one and the other, ask for advice and hints on new
ways of arranging the familiar details of life. And so
good manners, which are really the Christian virtues
of patience, charity, and self-control, will reign in that
house, and it will be a far pleasanter place than if every-
one in turn were loudly to volunteer their opinion of how
it ought to be conducted.7

This has truth in it. All individuals must decide for
themselves how to draw the line between good manners
and what may end in whited sepulchres. This is doubly
difficult with children, whose natural inclination is to
speak as they feel, for not to do so appears to them
rather as a deception than as a sparing of other people's
feelings. Everyone's experience will tell them how early
children say to others what they dare not say in their
own home. The great difficulty is to keep the love of
children. Goethe says : ' There is a politeness of the
heart; this is closely allied to love. Those who possess
this purest fountain of natural politeness find it easy to
express the same in forms of outward propriety.'

Nothing was more amusing to me than this interest-
ing variety in the letters about ' Sons and Daughters.' I
will quote passages from several of them : ' I agree with
your "Daughters " more than I thought I should. You

i4 MORE POT-POURRI

do not lay such stress as I thought you would on the
necessity of getting married and the "complete" point of
view.' All the same, I maintain that an unmarried
woman is not a complete human being.

' I think the chapter on " Sons " the better of the two.
But I think independence in boys is far easier to manage
than in girls. School -life brings boys to their proper
level. Home-life with absolute freedom rather leads to a
girl becoming too confident that her own opinion must
be the right one. She rubs up against so few who can or
will take her down. The independent girl generally rules
those of her own age. Of course, you can not lay down a
hard-and-fast rule for any child. Each one has its differ-
ent character, to be formed and improved by those who
live with it. This ought to be done by the mother, but it
is more often left to an ignorant governess, who does not
try to understand the child, who has her own narrow-
minded ideas of right and wrong, and never makes allow-
ance for high spirit and temper.'

' You must remember that the people I was brought
up amongst take their duties as parents seriously, if
narrowly — and many of these, as far as they still exist,
will be a little startled at some of your theories, and the
unmoral (mind, I don't say immoral) tone. Parents and
children are a subject of perennial interest. We have all
been the one, and many of us the other — and the rest of
us stand in loco parentis to some at least of the younger
generation. But as long as the world lasts there will be
difficulties in that relation. Sijeunesse savait, si meillesse
pouvait, is a saw which has many meanings. I totally
disagree with your idea that the young must never be
sacrificed to the old, or the healthy to the sick. Why,
your own remarks on nursing testify to the good that
may come of such a sacrifice.'

This last sentence proves to me that my remarks were

SEPTEMBER 15

not clear, and the impression conveyed is certainly not
what I intended. What I really think is that the old
have no right to command the young to sacrifice their
lives to them. But, on the other hand, the voluntary
sacrifice by the young of their own lives, though it should
be carefully watched by those about them, is certainly
not without immense benefit to themselves, self-sacrifice
being acknowledged by all moralists to be the greatest
strengthener of human character. There is, however,
the great risk and danger of self -suppression.

I continue my quotations:

' You put the question of unselfishness in parents or
children as being a difficult one, but I have always felt
that to help each person to be as they ought to be, in the
best and highest way for their own characters, is the only
right love and influence that each can have for the other,
no matter in what relations of life. If you either spoil
a child or a parent or husband or wife, so that you make
them behave wrongly, you are sure to be distressed by
their not doing right, and other people feel the same.'
Everyone must agree that to make those we love behave
well is the object to be attained. The difficulty is the
best method of bringing it about. Is it by unselfish
example or by exacting unselfishness on the part of
others ? Who can say ?

Here is a severe condemnation from a father of several
children: 'I don't agree one bit with your theoretical
subordination of old to young. I think it innately ridicu-
lous, essentially false, and at once morbid, superficial,
and mischievous.'

Nobody actually wrote it to me, but I heard it from
several people, that the advice about giving the latch-key
to very young boys harassed and worried a great number
of mothers. Why, I do not quite understand; as showing
confidence in the boy seems to me the beginning of all

16 MORE POT-POURRI

true relations between a mother and a growing -up son.
I still think that if boys are unfit to have a key at seven-
teen, or the recommended allowance at an earlier age, it
shows that their education has been somewhat defective
in fitting them, not for doing well at school, but for the
general struggle of life as they get older, which is learnt
so well by children in a lower class of life. There might,
of course, be an exception in a family, but that merely
means that he is more deficient in common-sense than
his brothers, and should be gradually strengthened by
some method fitted to his peculiar case. It is a delight-
ful feeling of comfort to me to think that, whatever I
suggest, nobody need follow it unless it seems to them
good ; but I wrote nothing without deliberate thought
and practical experience.

As a rule, the book seemed to please the old and the
young, rather than the middle-aged. Occasionally, how-
ever, some few parents wrote appreciating my hints about
the modern danger of children growing up more and more
apart from their parents. In our grandmothers' days
this only happened among what have been called the
'upper ten thousand.' Now it pervades all classes, down
to the labourer who has to send his children to the infant
and Board school. Not that schools of any sort are neces-
sarily bad in themselves, but it is a new position which
has to be faced with courage and thoughtfuluess by the
parents.

A young mother wrote full of faith in her own excellent
principles of how to bring up children, and how easy she
had found it to gain an influence on their lives. This
cocksureness, natural and even wholesome in the young,
often brings about a good deal of disappointment. You
may make a soil ever so good, and you may plant ever so
good a seed, but even then there can be no security as to
results. The very child who is most impressionable and

SEPTEMBER 17

easy to form in youth is also most affected by others as
time goes on. The result of a powerful influence which
we cannot even trace is what often makes children, as
they grow up, almost unrecognisable to their parents.
The forming of character, however, is totally different
from moulding the impressionable clay, and, like casting
bread upon the waters, it may return to us after many
days.

Here are some pathetic groans from an intensely
anxious mother of an only daughter: 'Needless to say
that the chapter of your book which chiefly interested me
is " Daughters," the education of my own being the burn-
ing question with me just now. You are certainly very
comforting in what you say of "casual and superficial
education," but I fear that would not satisfy the pro-
fessed and professing educationalist. In our case, want
of robustness on M.'s part has obliged us to put up with
home education, and of course it is then a mere chance
whether you happen to get a governess who can really
teach; for the teacher is born, not made. When, how-
ever, I read the " Parents' Review," or the educational
literature it recommends, I suffer agonies of remorse from
the consciousness of not having made enough of these
early years. My ambition is humble. I only wish my
child to be average, but not to be at a disadvantage if,
later on, she is prompted to take some part in the real
work of the world. And yet how can I, with my own
old-fashioned, defective education, train her in the right
way ? This fiend of education sits like a nightmare on
me almost day and night — "Almost thou persuadest me
it is impossible to be a parent." When I get up from
the perusal of these books, I feel castigated to such an
extent that my mind feels sore all over, and into those
wounds you pour the oil and wine of consolation. My
husband, highly educated as he is himself, is very much

i8 MORE POT-POURRI

inclined to take your view, and has, if anything, kept me
back rather than urged me on, always fearing that,
instead of arousing an interest in a subject, one should
simply cause a lasting distaste, if it is offered too early
to the immature mind. We cannot, however, put off
this " training of faculty" indefinitely, and I am becom-
ing more and more awake to the fact that my child, in
her cosy, comfortable home, does not know as much as I,
immured in a boarding-school, knew at her age. The
most tantalising part of the matter is that when I can
shake off this incubus of duty, she and I are so happy
together. I suppose there is some similarity in our
minds and tastes that makes her very responsive to me.
I cannot bring myself, owing, doubtless, to my own defec-
tive bringing-up, to stand at a distance, as it were, and
criticise severely. As M. has no classes this afternoon,
we are off to the British Museum — a sort of treat we
both thoroughly enjoy. But, as you know, I am given
to misgivings ; the question arises sometimes whether the
companionship of my mature mind is the best. " Child-
hood ought to be with childhood ' ' is constantly being
repeated to me.'

This letter seemed to me so touching that I sent it to
a friend of mine much interested in the subject. She
returned it with the following remarks, which express in
strong terms very much what I feel myself : ' I quite
agree — one of the most interesting letters you've had.
But it is harrowing to me the way this poor mother
won't let herself benefit by your advice, although she
seems to approve of it. You ask for my comments. I
should say she gives the receipt of what her line of con-
duct should be in the sentence ' ' When I can shake off
this incubus of duty she and I are so happy together. I
suppose there is some similarity in our minds and tastes
that makes her very responsive to me." Just fancy a

SEPTEMBER 19

mother having that opportunity and not using it ! There's
hardly a parent in fifty could boast as much. Personal
contact and sympathy with an older person means hot-
house growth to the mental capabilities of a child. The
one fear is lest it should overforce them. What do the
geography, history, arithmetic, and all the details of
early education matter ? The child's general intelligence
and power of acquiring knowledge from her own observa-
tion, which is the only true educator, will develop much
more fully and rapidly in the mother's company than
with a governess, especially if the mother lays herself
out to share all her knowledge, so far as possible, with
her child. As she grows up, the child will be the first to
discover where she is at a disadvantage compared to
others. If she is indifferent about this, I should say no
one else need mind for her, and she will be none the
worse. But if she minds, and she probably will, she can
then acquire the belated knowledge in half the time and
with half the money spent on teachers that would be re-
quired if spread out over a childhood more or less reluc-
tant to learn. Do try and stop the lady from taking in
"educational literature," for I'm sure it's not only use-
less but harmful to fret one's conscience unless it leads
to conviction, and, fortunately, this mother seems not
convinced by the "professing educationalists." . . .
If the child is already fifteen or sixteen, the only modi-
fication I should make to what I have said would be to
recommend putting most forcibly before the girl herself
that if she has to, or wishes to, "take some part in
the real work of the world ' ' she must utilise her best
faculties to the full, and try to diminish her defi-
ciencies.'

The burning question of what girls should or should
not read called forth a good deal of comment and opposi-
tion. The following was one of the best of the letters

20 MORE POT-POURRI

on this subject: 'I think that, allowing for hereditary
instincts and inherited character, or want of it, there can
be no hard-and-fast rule as to allowing girl children to
read without restriction. So much allowance must be
made for the enormous difference in children, who are,
quite unconsciously to themselves, swayed by tempera-
ment or feelings the real nature of which they are
ignorant and innocent of. This question opens up a
very wide field, and perhaps in your book you could only
afford space for generalisation on such a subject. I also
feel that children, like older people and plants and any
living thing, are subject to the eternal and terrible order
of change; have phases during which their whole nature
may become either lethargic and indifferent, or, on the
other hand, be dominated by sexual feeling, receptive or
otherwise. One girl at the budding period feels and sees
nothing harmful to her mind and morals ; while another,
hitherto pure and simple-minded, may have her imagina-
tion stimulated and her morbid curiosity partially grati-
fied by access to all and any kind of reading, and this
may have the effect of soiling a mind in the first and
most delicate stage of development. Children, too, are
extraordinarily unexpected in their phases, and often
turn out so much better or worse than one thought with-
out any apparent reason.' As regards the reading, in
spite of all that has been said, I cannot alter my view
that, on the whole, it is better to leave a great deal of
liberty from childhood upwards, allowing the child to
form her own taste, it being better to manage the read-
ing of the young by advice than by restrictions.

September 3rd.— A few days ago I returned home,
after being abroad and away from my garden for over
three months. I left towards the end of May, when all
was fresh and green, bursting with bud and life, and full
of the promise of the coming summer. In three months

SEPTEMBER 21

all seemed over ; the little place looked dried up and
miserable, small, ugly, disappointing — in fact, hardly
worth possessing at all.

I felt dreadfully depressed, but, of course, all this was
in great measure due to the time of year, the end of
August being the very worst month for this garden, and
one that I have never attempted to struggle with, yield-
ing rather to the difficulties and generally going away.
Shall I also confess my own character had something to
do with it ? Many people say, 'Absence makes the heart
grow fonder.' This is not my case under any circum-
stances, and especially not with my little home and
garden. The more I live here, the more I tend and
cherish it ; the more pains I bestow upon it, the more
I love it.

When I am urged to travel and change, I only feel
that I agree with Mr. Watson in these lines:

Nay, bid me not my cares to leave,
Who cannot from their shadow flee.

I do but win a short reprieve,
'Scaping to pleasure and to thee.

I may at best a moment's grace,

And grant of liberty, obtain;
Respited for a little space,

To go back into bonds again.

After being away for only a short time I come back
with the keenest excitement. But when I have been
away for some long time, and got interested in other
things, I come back in an ungardening mood, have for-
gotten all the horticultural names, and — if the time of
year is unfavourable — I see, too clearly, nothing but the
faults, and have a much too direct answer to Burns'
prayer in the last verse of his queer little poem, ' To a
Louse, on seeing One on a Lady's Bonnet at Church':

22 MORE POT-POURRI

O wad some pow'r the giftie gi'e us
To see oursels as others see us !
It wad frae monie a blunder free us

And foolish notion:
What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us,

And ev'n Devotion !

I love what I am with, but with me, alas ! Us absents
ont toujours tort, and for weeks I had been used to
greater beauties and wider interests. Here the dome of
heaven is lower, and no cypresses point upwards. The
moral to me is quite clear: Gardeners should only go
away from home to learn, not to see how beautiful the
world is elsewhere without any gardens at all, the
science of life being to make the best of what we have
to our hand, not to pine for what we have not.

September 5th. — The dryness continues, and we wait
in vain for rain. The weather makes us doubly appre-
ciate the small square of cool water just in front of the
dining-room window, and the pleasure it seems to bring
to bird and insect. Great fat thrushes splash them-
selves in the shallow edges specially prepared for them
with big stones, as they seem much afraid of deep
water. Two of us were sitting at early breakfast, when
my companion said to me in a subdued voice, ' Look
there ! ' I saw, perched on a hanging branch of the
rose growing on the Pergola, the most beautiful King-
fisher. His blue wings flashed in the sunshine, and,
turning his red breast, it glowed like that of a tropical
bird. In a few seconds he flew away. I have never
before seen a Kingfisher in this dry garden, and I can
only account for it, as we are more than a mile from the
river, by something peculiar in the season and his being
attracted, in his search for food, by the gold-fish in my
little fountain. A friend told me that the same thing
happened in her garden, and that the Kingfisher, never
seen before, beat himself against the glass window.

SEPTEMBER 23

One of the few things that looked really well in the
garden when I came home was the Cape annual, Nemesia
strumosa. The dryness apparently had suited the
flowering capabilities of the annual, but, finding that it
was forming no seed, I watered it daily, as it is one of
the plants from which it is well worth while to save the
seed, selecting it from the best-coloured flowers. The
seed wants a good deal of care in the gathering, as it
is so very ephemeral — unripe one day and gone the
next. For a person of my age, it means groping on
the ground each morning with one's spectacles on.
I certainly must add it to the list of annuals worth
growing in a small garden. We sow it in place the
middle of May.

September 7th. — The old-fashioned Zauschneria Cali-
f arnica, when well grown, is a very pretty plant, with
its soft gray leaves and scarlet flowers. I have had it
for years, and it has stood any amount of moving about
into different places. It never died, and yet never
flowered. I grew it on rockwork, I grew it in shade, I
grew it in the sun. It formed bushy little plants, but
never had a single flower. My patience was nearly
coming to an end, and I fell back on the gardener's
usual solace — that the soil did not suit it. When I paid
a visit to Mr. Thompson, of Ipswich, I found it flowering
most satisfactorily, and learnt from him the eternal
story that what it wanted was good feeding. It should
have very good, rich soil, plenty of manure, and be put
in a place that is free of damp in winter. This is the
difficulty with so many of the foreign plants we try to
grow. They want damp in their flowering- time, when
we are dry; and dryness in the winter, when we are
wet. I came home, broke up my Zauschneria, planted
it on the edge of a raised vine- border, in full sunshine
and with very well rotted manure. Helped, no doubt,

24 MORE POT-POURRI

also by the sunny season, it has flowered splendidly this
year, and is even finer than the one I had seen at
Ipswich. I think it is the better, like many other
things, for watering when the buds are formed. I see
in an un-modern gardening book that it only came to
England in 1847. We find no difficulty in propagating
it by division in spring. Cuttings strike easily in a
little heat, and form blooming plants in the same season.

Phloxes have done very badly this year, whether
removed from the reserve garden or left alone. In very
dry seasons it is best to quickly cut them down; they
flower again well when the rain comes. Michauxia cam-
panuloides is flowering now for the second time. I have
never grown it before, and its first bloom was in June,
while I was away, so that I did not see it in its prime.
The seed, unfortunately, does not ripen here, but it seems
to me a plant worthy of all the trouble that biennials
give; and experiments should be tried in growing it. I
am now going to try it grown the second year in pots,
under glass, in a cool house, in the same way as Cam-
panula pyramidalis is grown. I expect it will be very
fine. When grown out of doors it should be moved from
the seed-bed into a dry, sunny place, and it wants as
much water as you can give it when about to flower. It
is figured in Vol. xvii of Curtis' 'Botanical Magazine,'
but the flower there depicted gives little idea of the
beauty of the whole plant, although the unusual shape
and loveliness of the flower itself are well rendered.
Michauxia tchinatchewii (see Thompson's list) is new to
me and, I am told, good.

The Belladonna Lilies, treated as described in my
first book, have flowered excellently, many having two
flower -stems from apparently the same bulb. I imme-
diately sent to Holland for two dozen more, as I believe
there has been a disease among them in some places and

SEPTEMBER 25

that they are now rather scarce. As an example of how
small a thing will affect the flowering of Cape bulbs, I
noted this spring that the leaves in the more northern
part of my little bed got injured by frost and east wind
— not very severely, but slightly — and out of that dozen
bulbs only one flowered.

A favourite little plant of mine, which I have had for
years, has flowered unusually well this year. It is called
Tricyrtis hirta, and is a small Japanese Lily — very quiet
in colour, and spotted all over with lilac spots, but beau-
tiful in its growth, and well worth cultivating. The dry
rockwork seems to suit it, but I generally water it when
coming into flower. Every year, as it comes round, it
is a pleasurable excitement to see it develop its late
flowers. In a book by Mrs. Brightwen ('Glimpses into
Plant Life: an Easy Guide to the Study of Botany,'
Fisher Unwin) , it is alluded to as a typical pollenation
plant. She says: 'We have seen that there are all kinds
of devices by which the pollen of one flower may be made
sure to reach the stigma of another; but if by any means
this crossing fails, if the weather is such that insects are
scarce or other conditions cause failure, then, in the case
of many flowers, most curious contrivances are provided
to secure seed by self -pollenation. Truly, this is one of
the most beautiful of God's wonders in floral construc-
tion. One of the gems of my own flower-garden is a
lovely little Japanese toad-lily (Tricyrtis hirta) . In this
flower there are three styles, which stand well above the
stamens; the points of the styles are bent over, and the
stigmatic surface grows mature before the anthers shed
their pollen. If, however, no insect visits the flowers,
pollenation is effected in the following way: The styles
bend down and place their forked points in direct con-
tact with the open anther -lobes, the style assuming
almost the form of a semicircle. This is done very

26 MORE POT-POURRI

deliberately, for it is often a week before the act is com-
plete.' I think that 'Glimpses into Plant Life' is a book
that everyone interested in country life or a garden
would very much enjoy. The illustrations are clear and
good, and explain the text satisfactorily.

Nothing is more useful at this time of the year in
a window or a greenhouse than Vallota purpurea. It
is perfectly easy of cultivation, if the leaves are encour-
aged in their growth and thoroughly sunned and dried
off. The bulb should be very rarely re -potted and well
watered in its growing state. I am always hearing that
people lose their plants; this is probably from the gar-
dener's over -care and keeping them too warm and wet
through the winter. I am going to try them out of
doors next year, as Mr. Robinson recommends, now that
I have plenty of offsets, but I confess I have never seen
them doing well in England out of doors. They prob-
ably do not fear cold, as I saw many in full flower on
cottage window-sills in Norway.

The west sides of rockeries are often very dull,
especially in autumn. I find Origanum hybridum is a
charming, interesting, curious little plant that flowers
freely in a dry place in August and September. It is
almost exactly the same as the old 0. dictamnus figured
in Vol. xix of Curtis' 'Botanical Magazine.' Curtis
says: ' Turner, whose Herbal was printed in 1568, writes
thus concerning it : "I have seen it growynge in Eng-
land in Master Riches gardin naturally, but it groweth
nowhere ellis that I know of saving only in Candy.'"
This is rather a nice way of telling us where the plant
comes from. It seems easy of cultivation, and worth
growing. Caryopteris macrantke is a little blue dwarf
shrub that I have hardly ever seen anywhere, but which
I grow and increase here quite easily, and find it very
attractive. It wants a dry situation, and flowers better

SEPTEMBER 27

if cut back after flowering. It should be fed with a
little mulching and watering when it comes into bud.
I increase it easily from cuttings in spring.

As time goes on, I become fonder and fonder of the
generally abused Polygonums. Mr. Robinson, in his
latest edition of 'The English Flower Garden/ speaks
of them also with much favour, and gives a splendid list
of the varieties; but even he does not lay stress enough
upon what entirely different plants they become if suf-
ficiently thinned out and the suckers pulled off each
spring. Otherwise they are ragged, intolerable weeds.
If P. sachalinense is planted even under shade or in
half shade, thinned out to three or four shoots, and
watered or hosed in dry weather, the yearly growth is
absolutely tropical. It turns a rich yellow colour in
early autumn, and forms a splendid feature in places
where many plants would not grow at all, such as under
Fir-trees or in very poor soil. P. molle I do not think
Mr. Robinson names, and yet it is a beautiful thing ;
though some years, if in an exposed place, it flowers
so late that it gets injured by frost. It requires divid-
ing every autumn, re-planting in better soil, and thin-
ning every spring ; it is well, if it can be watered, to
grow it under some tree or shrub, which protects it in
case of early frost. It is worth some trouble, as its
flowering branches, almost like feathery white lilac, are
very handsome, coming, as they do, so late in the year.
P. Leichtlini is a very dwarf kind I brought from Ger-
many, and will, I think, prove a useful little plant on
the rockery for September flowering. The light blue
Cape Plumbago capensis is doing very well this hot year,
and is covered, out of doors, with its lovely cool china-
blue flowers. No other colour in the garden is quite
like it. It looks especially well planted against the posts
of a verandah. We pot up the old plants in October,

28 MORE POT-POURRI

cut them back, tie them up — when they take very little
room — and keep them rather dry all winter in a cold
shed just safe from the frost. We bring them on a
little in the spring, and plant them out the end of May
against a warm wall, though I am not at all sure that this
last is necessary. All they want is sunshine and copious
waterings. They are commonly treated in this way in
German gardens. Mr. Robinson says they can be in-
creased by division of the roots, but we also find cut-
tings strike easily in spring ; and three or four young
plants in a pot, as they flower at the top, are very pretty
in a greenhouse or window. Solanum jasminoides can
be treated in exactly the same way, though it will live
out through ordinary winters, especially if sheltered by
some other growth.

Last spring my jealousy was excited by seeing
Camellias flowering very well out of doors. The prin-
ciple on which they were managed was to plant them in
a thick shrubbery with overhanging branches of Rhodo-
dendron or some other evergreen shrub. The ground
was prepared with a good deal of peat. In consequence
of the successful healthy look of these Camellias, I have
myself planted out two large old trees. The great
secret of success is that they should face due north, and
be well watered in dry weather. If Dielytra spectabilis
is planted in the same way, facing north and under the
protection of some shrub, it flowers well out of doors. It
always gets injured by spring wiods and frosts in the
open borders here.

September 10th. — All the Funkias are worth growing,
but all might be left out of a small garden except Funkia
Sieboldi. That, anyhow, must be grown out of doors, as
it is a beautiful plant, gives no trouble, flowers every
year, and lasts very well in water. If kept in a pot it
flowers at the same time as out of doors, but under

SEPTEMBER 29

glass the flowers are distinctly finer. It is not very
often seen, but is quite the handsomest, I think, of the
Funkias.

A friend asks me to recommend a really good book on
the kitchen garden, including the proper treatment of
fruit trees. I know no one book complete; the informa-
tion on vegetables and fruit must be gleaned apart. For
detailed directions on the culture of vegetables, none
comes near the translation of Vilmorin's, mentioned
before. But for ordinary purposes and as a cheap
book, Button's ' The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers'
(Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co.) is excellent.
'Profitable Fruit-growing,' by John Wright, F.R.H.S.
(171 Fleet street, London), is clear, comprehensive, and
concise, giving excellent information on pruning and
general cultivation of all outdoor fruit trees, and cur-
rants, gooseberries, and raspberries. It makes no allu-
sion to orchard-houses, nor to vines under glass or out
of doors.

Samphire is a herb I have never yet tried to grow. I
believe it is only to be had wild in its integrity from
Norfolk, where they still make quite an industry of
gathering and pickling it. The fresh Samphire is only
to be found in August and September.

A critic in 'The Guardian' on lPot-Pourri' says it is
a mistake to prune Chymonanthus fragrans after flower-
ing in the winter, as I suggested ; and adds, ' it should
be done late in the summer by shortening back the
year's growths to a quarter of their own length or less,
to throw the vigour of the shrub into the short flower-
ing spur rather than let it run into long, leafy and
flower-less branches.' I think this quite true, but I call
that cutting back. What I mean by 'pruning' is taking
out real branches, and I think that is desirable here in
this light soil with nearly all the flowering shrubs

30 MORE POT-POURRI

directly after flowering, as well as cutting back later in
the year if they make too much growth.

I wonder the claret -coloured Vine is so seldom
planted. The foliage is handsome and effective, and the
little bunches of black grapes are interesting, and remind
one of the ornaments in early Gothic churches. The
stunted bunches are quite different in shape from those
of ordinary grapes. They grow well up a pole, and
make a good rough arch. Pancretiums are excellent
greenhouse plants and well worth growing, especially P.
fragrans. But in a small garden and greenhouse all
these bulbs and plants want remembering and looking
after, in order to get a good succession, and the head of
the garden must help the gardener, as it is absolutely
impossible, with the number of things requiring his
constant attention, that he should remember them all
himself.

September lltJi. — What a week of excitement this has
been, even for those without near relations in that far-
away Nile Valley ! Never in all my life do I remem-
ber what might be called the aggressive, grasping,
ruling spirit of the typical John Bull to have been
so united and so universal. War, and the pity of it, and
the question why it has to be, which was so strong a
feeling and which had such large numbers of supporters
in the old Crimean day and even in the Indian Mutiny
time, seems now simply non-existent. Is this gain or is
it loss ? Is it progress or is it retrogression ? A most
curious and, to me, poetic description, showing the
conservativeness of the East, and how certain effects
suggesting certain word-paintings were the same in the
time of David as to-day, struck me very forcibly when I
read it in yesterday's 'Spectator,' and I record it here.
That a figure of speech which has long puzzled some-
what ignorant Bible commentators should be explained,

SEPTEMBER 31

as with a lime -light flash, by the unconscious wording of
a war correspondent of to-day, seems indeed a drawing
together of all historic times :

' The telegraphic despatch conveying the news of the
battle of Omdurman contained an interesting illustra-
tion of a verse of the sixty -eighth Psalm which has
caused some difficulty to commentators. The Prayer
Book version reads (verse 14): "When the Almighty
scattered kings for their sake : then were they as white
as snow in Salmon" — i. e., as generally explained, the
flashing of the armour of the slain warriors resembled
the snow shining on the dark boughs of the forest.
Unconsciously, perhaps, the writer of the telegraphic
despatch has used the same simile. His words are :
"After the dense mass of the Dervishes had melted to
companies and the companies to driblets, they broke and
fled, leaving the field white with jibba-clad corpses,
like a meadow dotted with snowdrifts.7"

Is this really the last of these snow -flecked plains, or
will another Mahdi and other Dervishes arise in future
ages, to once more strew the ground with these white-
clad corpses?

September 13th. — Last year, about this time, I drove
to Mr. Barr's, at Long Ditton, and there I saw, planted
out in an open bed, Tigridias, both white and red ; and
they looked splendid. I have never seen them grown
out of doors in gardens, but Mrs. Loudon, in her ' Ladies'
Flower Garden' (the volume on bulbous plants), speaks
of them as easily cultivated if taken up in the autumn.
Mrs. Loudon says: 'They have tunicated bulbs and
very long, fibrous roots, which descend perpendicularly.
They should be planted in a very deep, rich soil, which
should either be of an open nature, or be kept so by a
mixture of a sufficient quantity of sand, so as to allow a
free passage for the descent of the roots, in the same

32 MORE POT-POURRI

way as is necessary for Hyacinths. If Tigridias are to
be raised from seed, the seeds are sown in March or
April in a hotbed and transplanted into the open
border in May. Here they may remain till the leaves
begin to wither in autumn, when the young bulbs should
be taken up and kept for planting the ensuing spring.
The splendid colours of this flower and the easiness of
its culture render it a general favourite. Its only
faults are that its flowers have no fragrance, and that
they are of very short duration, never lasting more than
a day. But they are produced in such abundance in
succession as to compensate for this defect. It is a
native of Mexico. In its native country its bulb is con-
sidered medicinal, and it was on this account that it was
sent to Europe by Hernandez, physician to Philip II of
Spain when he was employed by the Spanish Govern-
ment to examine into ' the virtues ' of the plants of the
New World. It was not introduced into England till
1796. It is sufficiently hardy to be left in the ground
all the winter, were it not on account of the danger to
which it would be exposed from damp. It is better to
take it up in September or October, tie it in bundles,
and hang it up in a dry place till spring. Why it is
always grown by gardeners in pots I do not know. In
his last edition, Mr. Robinson speaks very favourably of
growing it out of doors, and mentions particularly the
ivory white one with carmine-red base, which I saw
last year and thought very beautiful. What he says
about cultivation is exactly what I have quoted above
from Mrs. Loudon. In fact, treat them exactly as one
would the Gandaven sis gladioli. Gerarde, in his Herbal,
speaks with delightful distrust of the very existence of
the Tigridia as described by travellers. After trying to
illustrate the plant from description, he goes on to say :
' The second feigned picture hath beene taken of the

SEPTEMBER 33

Discouerer and others of later time, to be a kinde of
Dragons not seene of any that haue written thereof ;
which hath moued them to thinke it a feigned picture
likewise ; notwithstanding you shall receiue the descrip-
tion thereof as it hath come to my hands. The root
(saith my Author) is bulbous or Onion fashion, out-
wardly blacke ; from the which springs vp long leaues,
sharpe pointed, narrow, and of a fresh greene colour: in
the middest of which leaues rise vp naked or bare
stalkes, at the top whereof groweth a pleasant yellow
floure, stained with many small red spots here and there
confusedly cast abroad : and in the middest of the floure
thrusteth forth a long red tongue or stile, which in time
groweth to be the cod or seed-vessell, crooked or
wreathed, wherein is the seed. The virtues and tem-
perature are not to be spoken of, considering that we
assuredly persuade our selues that there are no such
plants, but meere fictions and deuices, as we terme
them, to giue his friend a gudgeon.' ' Giving his friend
a gudgeon ' is apparently a Gerardian expression for
what we should now call in familiar language ' pulling
his leg.'

I alluded before (page 132 of 'Pot-Pourri') to the
cultivation of the large Japanese Stonecrop (Sedum
spectdbile) . I have grown to like it more and more,
because it is a very obliging plant, and will grow even
in shade, though the specimens are far finer if grown in
good soil and moved into a sunny place in July or
August. I always take this little trouble, and in Sep-
tember I have my reward. Many people will not
appreciate the great beauties of this plant because of
the colour of the flowers, which are of rather an inartis-
tic magenta- pink; but the insects do not find this so,
and the reason I grow so much of it is that the bees
simply love it. The little hard-working honey-bee, the

34 MORE POT-POURRI

large, handsome bumble-bee, flies and beetles of all
kinds, and the beautiful common butterflies, all flop
about it with the keenest enjoyment, the colour of the
flower only making a groundwork to their bright hues
on a sunny September morning. I never fail either to
think, as I look at this scene, of a little poem by Victor
Hugo which was the delight of my youth, though per-
haps for non- floral reasons:

La pauvre fleur disait au papillon celeste :

' Ne fuis pas !
Vois comme nos destins sont diff6rents. Je reste,

Tu t'en vas!

' Pourtant nous nous aimons, nous vivons sans les homines

Et loin d'eux,
Et nous nous ressemblons, et 1'on dit que nous sommes

Fleurs tous deux !

' Mais, he'las! Pair t'emporte et la terre m'enchaine;

Sort cruel!
Je voudrais embaumer ton vol de mon haleine

Dans le eiel !

' Mais non, tu vas trop loin ! Parmi des fleurs sans nombre

Vous fuyez,
Et moi je reste seul a voir tourner mon ombre

A mes pieds!

1 Tu fuis, puis tu reviens, puis tu t'en vas encore

Luire ailleurs.
Aussi me trouves-tu toujours a chaque aurore

Toute en pleurs !

' Oh ! pour que notre amour coule des jours fideles,

O mon roi ;
Prends comme moi racine, ou donne moi des ailes

Comme a toi ! '

Now and then quite strange insects appear just once,
and then never again. I have heard this is because
eggs of insects are sometimes deposited in baskets or

SEPTEMBER 35

bales bringing goods from hot countries, which in dry
summers are hatched out in these northern climates.
One summer my Sedums were covered with a lovely
green beetle. I have never seen him again, but I am
too ignorant to know if he were a stranger or only an
insect common in our gardens and appearing in some
summers and not in others — a usual occurrence with all
insects. Sometimes there are a quantity of one kind,
they having triumphed over their natural enemies and
flourished abundantly. Then for a year or two they
disappear entirely. This is an especial characteristic
of butterflies. I thought there might be some way of
encouraging butterflies in my garden, where they seem
to have become rarer, and I asked a friend, who has
studied natural history all his life, whether he could help
me to do this. His answer was : ' The way to have
butterflies is to encourage the food -plants of the cater-
pillar.' He added: 'Fortunately, our three handsomest
English butterflies feed on the nettle — the Peacock, the
Small Tortoiseshell, and the Red Admiral. The Purple
Emperor is too rare for consideration.' I, being a
gardener before all things, did not think it was at all
fortunate that their natural food was nettles. I had
spent my whole life in eradicating nettles, so it is
perhaps not astonishing if butterflies have become less
in my garden.

We have had a great many figs this year, and they
have ripened well. No doubt they do better since we
have removed suckers and the small autumn figs that
never ripen here. It is curious how few people in Eng-
land realize that, apparently, the fig never flowers, and
that what we call the fruit is the flower. Male and
female mixed are inside the fig, which when it enlarges
forms the receptacle and encloses numerous one -seeded
carpels imbedded in its pulp. This may be seen quite

36 MORE POT-POURRI

plainly by cutting open a slightly unripe fig. I used to
think the flower of the Fig was so small that it was in-
visible ! My little Mulberry tree, planted only fifteen
years ago and now a good size, did wonderfully well this
year. All over England Mulberries fruited in great
quantities from the hot, dry season. They are trees that
require much judicious pruning, and taking out of great
branches now and then, or the fruit never ripens
because of the size and thickness of the leaves. I have
lately read that Leonardo da Vinci's great patron at
Milan, Ludovico il Moro, was so named, not from the
darkness of his complexion, as Gibbon supposes, but
because he took a Mulberry tree (moro) for his device —
from its being considered wiser than all other trees, as it
buds later and does not flower until it has escaped the
injuries of winter, when it immediately bears fruit. This
the Prince considered was emblematic of his disposition.
To us it means that Mulberry trees should be much more
grown than they are, not only because they are beautiful
and useful, but because of this late budding. The fruit
is excellent cooked with apples, even if it is not quite
ripe. Sweet Spanish Chestnuts are also very late trees
in spring.

Sweet-scented Geraniums cut back in the spring do
best for autumn and winter. For planting out the next
year, they should be cut back hard, like show Pelargo-
niums, at the end of September .

My trees of Magnolia grandiflora, though still small,
are covered this year with their beautiful flowers. These
are, I am sure, best always cut off. It only strengthens
the trees for forming flower-buds next year.

September 15th. — For those who care to have Sweet
Peas early in the year, it is well to sow them now in the
drills or holes, so as to earth them up a little after they
come through the soil.

SEPTEMBER 37

Cassia corymbosa is a yellow greenhouse plant now in
flower and very useful. It is so nearly hardy that it will
grow, like the blue Plumbago, against a south wall in
the summer months. It comes from Buenos Ayres, and
won't stand any frost.

September 25ih. — I saw a Suffolk garden this Septem-
ber, where I learnt more in an hour than one would do in
most places in a week. It was a beautiful, stately, flat
garden and on a very large scale, with tall trees and
broad expanses of lawn, which, in spite of my opinion
stated before, and which angered so many of my readers
(about overdoing grass in small places), I do immensely
admire when sufficiently spacious and with spreading
timber feathering to the ground. I saw in this garden
the finest tubs of Hydrangeas I have ever seen anywhere.
They were much raised above the ground, on a half -tub
reversed or on bricks, so that the plants, which had been
left alone for many years, fell all around, covering the
tubs almost entirely. The tubs were painted white, and
the gardener told me that instead of putting them into
any house or shed in winter he put them under very
thick shrubs. In his case he was fortunate to have an
Ilex grove. Nothing was cut off the Hydrangeas but the
faded flowers. By this means they get the damp and
cold, which only strengthen them in their resting state.
In the spring he cuts out the dead wood, mulches and
copiously waters them when they begin to grow, and the
result was certainly most satisfactory. Hydrangeas
strike very easily in spring ; and small young plants,
especially if white or blue — which the pink ones will
often turn to if planted in peat — make useful small dec-
orative plants in a greenhouse or for late flowering.
The tubs of Cape Agapanthus were less fine in foliage
than mine are; but they had spike upon spike of bloom,
which is really what one wants. He treated these in the

38 MORE POT-POURRI

same way as before described for Hydrangeas, leaving
them out all the winter. Mine were kept in a cool green-
house, and looked perfectly healthy, but had hardly any
flowers at all this year. It's the old story. Everything
from the Cape stands many kinds of treatment, but must
have a long period of rest in order to flower well. Under
a tall wall facing west in this Suffolk garden was a
glorious border of many of the hardiest Bamboos, with a
few strong -growing herbaceous plants in between and
towards the front. The soil, in spite of the dryness of
the year, was moist and very heavy, and the gardener
told me he never dug up the border or touched it except
to thin out and dig a big wedge out of the herbaceous
plants with his spade in winter, filling up the hole with
strong manure well stamped in. This, where size of
clumps and filling up of large spaces are wanted, is quite
an admirable plan. No re -plan ting is either necessary
or desirable. In a small garden and light soil, where
refinement and specimen plants are desired, re -planting
and dividing, as well as thinning out, certainly seem to
me to give finer blooms. On the top of a low wall, divid-
ing this garden from another portion of it, were some
flower -boxes well filled with trailing and half-hardy
plants, brilliant in colour and easy to water and attend
to ; and the effect was very good, and might be adopted
on those dreary little walls that sometimes divide small
villa gardens from their neighbours. The evaporation
from painted wood is very much less than from flower-
pots, and there is no fear of their being thrown over by
a high wind.

Going about, I observe that — next to pruning and
cutting back — there is nothing people are so ignorant
about as watering, especially in dry weather. The
ordinary non- gardening mind seems to think that if a
thing looks blighted or faded or drooping, it is ' below

SEPTEMBER 39

par', and that water acts as the required tonic; whereas
it is often that the dry weather has only hastened the
period of rest, and when that is the case nothing is so
hopeless as watering anything that is not in full growth.
Consequently, in mixed borders, unless very carefully
done, to a plant that is coming into bud, watering —
and, above all, hosing — is best left alone; and much
watering in the summer is very injurious to spring-
flowering shrubs. At the same time, copious soaking
once or twice a week is necessary very often to keep
newly planted things alive. Half-hardy planted -out
things, annuals, and plants lately moved from the
reserve garden, can safely be watered. In this Suffolk
garden all watering was done at four or five in the
morning, the gardeners leaving off work at two in the
afternoon. This plan, I think, would often work very
well, both for the masters and men, during the long, hot
days, but gardeners seldom like it.

RECEIPTS

I indiscreetly asked one of my rather intimate friends
whether he had read 'Pot-Pourri.' He said, rather
hastily: 'No; I gave it to my cook.' This impressed
me with the idea that a good number of people valued
the first 'Pot-Pourri' a great deal more for its cooking
receipts than for anything else. Consequently, the book
quickly leaves the library or the drawing-room for the
kitchen, and I think it would be a distinct assistance to
the cook if I keep these new receipts as much as possible
together, though I allot them a place in each month, as
the times and seasons have such a great influence on
food and garden produce. In this book I reserve to
myself the right to spell recipe 'receipt,' to which some
of my friends objected before. I was taught that recipe

40 MORE POT-POURRI

meant a prescription, and it always seems to me a slight
affectation when I see it in a cookery book. I believe
'receipt' to be quite as old and good a word used in this
sense. In an old cookery book of mine, which was
written by a lady and published in 1770, the word is
spelt 'receipt.'

I take a great interest in cooks, and am always most
anxious to help them, having agreed from my youth
upwards with Owen^ Meredith's delicious lines in
'Lucile' :

We may live without poetry, music, and art;

We may live without conscience, and live without heart ;

We may live without friends ; we may live without books ;

But civilised man cannot live without cooks.

He may live without books — what is knowledge but grieving ?

He may live without hope — what is hope but deceiving ?

He may live without love— what is passion but pining ?

But where is the man that can live without dining ?

There have been some complaints about the cooking
receipts not being exact enough. I had tried them all
myself, and with success, with several cooks, but I do
not deny they were intended for those who understood
cooking sufficiently to refer to more detailed books when
they felt themselves to be ignorant. I shall continue to
refer to ' Dainty Dishes' (by Lady Harriet St. Clair) as I
did before, and without it my receipts are incomplete.
Cooks differ very much in how they follow receipts.
Some try to do it literally, but without judgment as
regards increasing or decreasing quantities according to
the number for whom they have to cook. Other cooks
accept a receipt with the distinct conviction that their
own way is far the best, and naturally then the new
receipt does not turn out very satisfactorily. A good
many cooks carry out a receipt very well the first time,
and then think they know it by heart, and in a high-

SEPTEMBER 41

handed way never look at it again. All this is where the
eye and the head of the mistress coine in. Without
showing it, she must know the peculiarities of her own
particular cook, and by gentle flattery lead her back into
the right way. As my excuse for a certain vagueness in
some of the receipts, I give them as they were given to
me, for I did not by any means invent them all. Even
when they are mine, I instruct the cook, but do not
myself cook.

Some of my nieces scolded me for not putting the
receipt for my bread sauce in my last book, saying they
so seldom found it really good elsewhere. It is made in
every English kitchen, small and big ; and yet how very
rarely is it excellent, as it ought to be, and with what
horror is it viewed by foreigners !

Bread Sauce.— It is very important that the bread
should be grated from a tin loaf, and allowed to dry in
a paper bag for some time before using it. It is abso-
lutely impossible to make good bread sauce with new
bread. Cut up an onion in rather large pieces, boil it in
milk, pass it through a sieve, or remove the onion. Pour
the milk boiling over the crumbs, and add a few pepper-
corns. Boil the whole in a china saucepan for about
twenty minutes. As the milk is absorbed, add a little
more until it is an even mass, neither too moist nor too
dry. Remove the pepper-corns before serving, and stir
in a large piece of fresh butter. Many people add
cream, which spoils it. Cream makes the sauce tasteless
and fade.

The following is a much simpler receipt and suggests
a poultice rather more than I quite like; but it is excellent
to eat, and useful to know, as it can be carried out in a
sick-room or a lodging-house kitchen. Take a break-
fastcupful of fresh breadcrumbs, rubbed, not grated ; a
breakfastcupful of milk. Cut up into it an onion, and

42 MORE POT-POURRI

add two or three pepper -corns. Boil the milk up and
pour it on the crumbs, which have been put into a
small basin. Cover over, and let it stand for two hours.
Remove any pieces of onion that show. Warm up before
it is wanted, with a small piece of fresh butter the size
of a walnut.

It is also, under the same circumstances, useful to
know that chickens or game of any kind can be per-
fectly well roasted in a baking-tin on a little kettle-
stand in front of any ordinary fire in the following way :
Put a little bacon fat in the pan, lay the bird in it on
its side, with the back towards the fire. Baste well.
When sufficiently done, turn it onto the other leg, with
the back still towards the fire. For ten minutes at the
end, with a large fowl or pheasant, turn the breast to the
fire, basting it well. The time a bird will take to roast
must depend on its size. Woodcocks, snipe, and larks
will take a very short time.

Vegetable Marrow.— Peel a young vegetable mar-
row, cut it across in slices the thickness of a finger, and
put them in a tin in a moderate oven, with a little piece
of butter on each. Bake for nearly an hour. Prepare
some pieces of toast slightly buttered and hot. Lay a
slice of the vegetable marrow on each piece. Warm in
butter a little of the sweet -chutney (see 'Pot-Pourri,'
page 126), put half a teaspoonful of it onto each slice,
and serve.

If vegetable marrows get past being young, let them
ripen well, then dry and store them on a shelf in the
fruit -house or elsewhere. In winter break one up by
hammering a knife through it, clean out the seeds,
cut the pieces into small dice half an inch square, boil
them with very little salt in cold water till soft, strain
them, and make a nice thick white sauce (Bechamel).
Put the marrow in the sauce, add a small piece of

SEPTEMBER 43

sugar, and serve hot. Pumpkins can be treated in the
same way.

If you have grown the little ridge cucumbers — those
recommended in Button's book do very well either in a
cool house or outside — and have had any left over in
this month, which I never have, this German receipt for
preserving them — in Germany they always grow them
in large quantities — is very useful and good.

Cucumbers preserved in salt (in a barrel or stone
jar). — Pick the outdoor cucumbers when about three
inches long and one inch thick. Brush them in a large
tub of cold water till quite clean. Spread them on a
table to dry. Meanwhile, boil up a large quantity of
water. Measure it carefully, and for each quart of water
add a small teacupful of salt and a small teacupful of
vinegar. Boil all well together, and let it get cold'
Then put some vine-leaves, fennel, tarragon, pimpernel,
and a few bay -leaves and pepper -corns at the bottom of
a small barrel or stone jar. Place four layers of cucum-
ber, one of herbs and leaves, and so on till full. Cover
the top thickly with leaves, and pour on the salt water
till the jar is quite full. Put a clean slate over the top
of the jar, and weight it with a stone. They should
stand for at least six weeks.

A Puree of Vegetables.— A pretty dish can be
made with a purfe of any kind of green vegetables sur-
rounded by macaroni cut into small pieces, boiled plain
with a little onion in the water, drained, and warmed up
in a little strong stock (or water), butter, and a little
sugar. The New Zealand Spinach or the Spinach Beet
is sure to be still quite good in the garden.

A friend of mine who has been much in the East
makes the following comments on my curry receipt and
my cooking of rice : ' You say meat in curry is to be cut
in dice. An old Indian uncle of mine always taught

44 MORE POT-POURRI

his cooks to make curries, and there were never better
curries; and he always said, No dice, but thinnish slices
about the size of two small mouthfuls. I think he was
right.' The Indian uncle also said that rice can never
be really properly cooked except in earthenware vessels.
I think I agree with both these criticisms.

Here is a good receipt for those troubled with a
superabundance of grouse :

Grouse Salad.— Select fresh salad material. Place
this in a shallow dish on which has been constructed a
border of hard-boiled eggs, set off with pieces of
anchovies and sliced beetroot.

Sauce. — Two tablespoonfuls of eschalots minced
small, seven teaspoonfuls of chopped tarragon and
chervil, five dessertspoonfuls of pounded sugar, the
yolks of two eggs, five saltspoonfuls of pepper and salt
mixed, and a very small pinch of cayenne. Mix slowly
with twelve or thirteen tablespoonfuls of salad oil and
six dessertspoonfuls of chili vinegar. Add half a pint
of whipped cream.

The grouse may be roasted or fried. Build up the
grouse tastefully in pyramidal form on the greenstuff,
then pour the sauce over the whole, and serve.

This receipt for pickled damsons was sent me by one
of my very kind readers, with a bottle of the same,
which certainly was quite excellent.

Pickled Damsons. — Six pounds of damsons, six
pounds of sugar, two quarts of vinegar, quarter of an
ounce of cinnamon (stick), quarter of an ounce of
cloves, one onion (about as large as a nutmeg), half
tablespoonful of cayenne tied in muslin, and a little
salt.

Put all except the damsons into a pan, and boil; then
pour the liquid over the fruit, and allow the whole to
remain until the next day, when strain it, putting the

SEPTEMBER 45

fruit back into a basin; boil up the liquid, and pour it
over the fruit again. Let the whole stand for another
twenty -four hours, and on the third day boil for four
or five minutes. Strain and press through a sieve, to
remove the stones and skins. The pickle will then be
ready to bottle for use.

Both the following receipts are Belgian. The eight
stumps of endive make my economical hair stand on
end, as the curly endive, which is the one intended, is
a very shy grower in this hot soil, and we blanch it
rather preciously under boards for November salads.
But the broad -leaved Batavian endive is very nearly as
good, only it requires longer cooking. Take eight
stumps of endive, a good bit of butter (say, the size
of ~ two walnuts), a good teaspoonful of flour, half a
teacupful of milk, and a little salt. Throw away the
bad leaves, cut the others in small pieces till near the
stump. Wash several times, so that the sand may sink.
Let the endive boil in plenty of water with a little salt
for about an hour; then put it on a sieve to drip out
well. Make a sauce of the milk, flour, and butter, and
let it stew for a few minutes.

Purslane. — The purslane, after being picked and
washed, is put on a gentle fire to melt, without adding
any water. When quite soft, add some salt (a very
little) to taste. If too watery, pour it off ; then add
butter (a rather larger piece than the size of a walnut),
and carefully mix a well -beaten egg ; or, if this does
not suit the taste, bind it with a little flour.

Here is an excellent aromatic herb - seasoning which
does equally well for use with vegetables or meat. I
found it in an old-fashioned book called 'The Gentle-
woman,' published in 1864, which I shall notice again
further on. The author took this receipt from Fran-
catelli, the famous cook of the day. Take of nutmegs

46 MORE POT-POURRI

one ounce; mace, one ounce; cloves, two ounces; dried
bay -leaves, one ounce ; basil, three ounces ; marjoram,
three ounces; winter savoury, two ounces ; thyme, three
ounces ; cayenne pepper, half an ounce ; grated lemon-
peel, half an ounce; two cloves of garlic. All to be
well pulverised in a mortar and sifted through a fine
wire sieve, and put away in dry corked bottles. We
made this last year, and used it frequently through
the winter for flavouring a great many things, such
as purges of cabbage, preserved French beans, soups,
sauces, etc. I reduced the cayenne pepper to half the
prescribed quantity.

Blackberry Jelly. — Boil the blackberries. Strain
them and stiffen with isinglass. This keeps splendidly,
and is not too sweet,

OCTOBER

Gardening— Echeverias— Ignorance about bulbs— Gossamer time
and insects — The East Coast — A new rockery — Oxalis flori-
bunda as a vegetable — Previous ' Pot- Pourris' — Cooking
receipts, various — Journey to Frankfort in 1897 — Cronberg —
Boecklin's Todten-Insel — Jewish Cemetery — Goethe's house —
Staedal Art Institute— German treatment of tuberculosis.

October 5th. — The other day I was going round the
garden, giving away plants, when I came to a bed where
there were several fine Echeverias. They had been
planted out to grow naturally into better plants. I
offered my friend some, but she said, with a shudder:
'What! those artichoke -looking things'? No; thank
you.' I think the dislike of these plants arises very
likely from their having been used so much in those
old-fashioned beds arranged in fancy designs as ugly
and incongruous as the patterns on a Turkish smok-
ing-cap.

These plants are not only kind friends that give little
trouble, and can be grown in pots and allowed to assume
their natural growth, but they are also exceedingly
beautiful. I have an Echeveria metallica crispa grown
to a large plant in a pot. It has been perhaps retarded
in its growth by dryness this summer, and is now
throwing up a fine pink flower -spike. The whole tone
of the plant is lovely to a degree, shot with pale pur-
ples, grays, and pinks, and as full of drawing as the
cone of an Italian pine. The thick stem is beautifully
marked by the leaves as they have dried up and fallen
away. The plant is altogether very picturesque in its

(47)

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quaint growth, and admirably adapted for a room or win-
dowsill in late autumn, and reminds one of the corner of
a Dutch picture. The Echeverias and Cotyledons are
closely allied (natural order Crassulacece) , and there are
many varieties of these plants, all requiring much the
same treatment — protection and very little watering in
winter, but otherwise next to no care. They can be
increased easily by cuttings at any time, starved and
re -potted at will, which alters their flowering -time.
They will grow in china pots, with only a few stones for
drainage; or will hang out of Japanese vases, suspended
by wires, containing hardly any earth. A large earth-
enware pan of the ordinary Echeveria glauca is a very
pretty sight in summer, and does well in a north win-
dow. It can be planted with a little peat, charcoal, and
a few stones.

I never knew till this year that Marvels of Peru can
be kept, like Dahlias, free from frost and started the
following spring, when they make much handsomer
plants than if grown each year from seed. In gardens
where you are pressed for room — and where is it
that you are not ? — it is an excellent plan to make a
hole in the ground, put some straw at the bottom,
and lay in Geraniums, Dahlias, Marvels of Peru, and
many other half-hardy things, cover them with straw,
and earth up just as you would potatoes or mangolds
in a field.

October 10th. — It is extraordinary how vague are
people's ideas about plants, bulbs, etc.; and it is not till
one is asked questions that one realises how much most
people have to learn. I was asked the other day by a
friend, who had had a lot of Narcissus bulbs given her,
if she might plant them in a Tea-rose bed ! That is the
last place where they ought to be put, as, if planted in
too rich a soil, they all go to leaf and flower badly; and

OCTOBER 49

Roses are the better for being heavily mulched in the
winter and spring.

Mr. Robert Sydenham, of Tenby street, Birming-
ham, publishes a catalogue of bulbs, in which are the
clearest possible instructions of how to cultivate them,
both in pots and in the open, with an interesting
account of his own first experiences. If these instruc-
tions are carefully followed, I do not believe the disap-
pointing failures, so often seen when amateurs try to
force bulbs, will occur. He also makes it quite plain
which are the bulbs that should be planted in poor
places and left alone, and those which have to be taken
up, dried, and re-planted. Tulips, at least in this soil,
require much better feeding than any of the Narcissus
tribe, and are certainly the better for taking up and
drying after their leaves have thoroughly died down. I
planted my Roman Hyacinths, according to Mr. Syden-
ham's directions, early in October, and the result was
more satisfactory than I have ever had before, and they
were in full flower by Christmas. It is a very pretty
conceit to plant Hyacinths in shallow earthenware or
china pans with jadoo, cocoanut fibre or moss, and
place small stones and charcoal at the bottom for
the roots to cling to as they grow up. They must
be kept very wet. Planted in this way they look
much more decorative in the room than when grown
in pots or glasses. Any fancy or ornamental vase
can be used for the purpose, whether it is flat or
not. Many kind hints have been given me by various
correspondents about the growing of Hepaticas. One
lady said that small beds with pieces of sandstone were
a great help. Another writes as follows : ' I thought
you might be glad of certain facts about Hepaticas
that have come under my own observation. When
a child I lived in Somersetshire, where the soil was

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heavy clay. The most beautiful show of Hepaticas I
ever saw anywhere was a row in an old lady's garden,
close under a thick hedge of Laurestinus, with a due
north aspect. They were single -blue and double -pink.
In the same village there was for many years a large
clump of double -pink close under a cottage wall with a
south-east aspect. That also flowered abundantly, so
for double -pink, at any rate, shade is not essential,
though I remember that the late James Backhouse told
me many years ago that the Hepaticas did best and
flowered earliest with a north aspect, as then they went
to sleep sooner in the autumn. The wild ones in Swiss
and French woods are always where they would be
shaded in summer, and grow with the Primroses. I
was also unsuccessful with Hepaticas for many years, as
long as I grew them on the flat, but when I at last tried
them on the shady side of the rockery, between the
stones, the blue ones have done well, the plants increas-
ing in size year by year and flowering abundantly.' I
found by my letters that a good many people thought
when I did not mention some plants that I either had
not got them, or did not care for them, or did not know
them. The last was sometimes the case, but I have, of
course, a great many things in the garden, grown in the
usual way and doing well, which I did not mention.

October 15th. — I suppose there are still some few peo-
ple who plant trees for their children or grandchildren,
although it is rather the fashion to expect gardens and
woods to be made in a day, and always to be planting
quick -growing things, Scotch Firs being discarded and
the ugly -growing Pinus austriaca planted in its stead,
etc. One of the loveliest things I know in this neigh-
bourhood is a road running through a Beech -tree copse,
planted thickly but varying in depth on each side of the
road. The trees when they were young were evidently

OCTOBER 51

cut down, as many of them have two or three stems. At
all times of the year the drive up this chalk slope is
perfectly enchanting — whether in the autumn, when the
stems are gray and green against the leaf -strewn ground,
rich and golden in the slanting sunlight ; or in spring,
when the tiny leaves make nickering light and shade ; or
in the cool thickness on a summer's day. The fact that
nothing grows under beech -wood gives a very dis-
tinguished and unusual effect, accustomed as we are to
the dull walls of evergreens. For the young who wish
to plant a most unusual approach, I can suggest
nothing better.

The planting along the roads and hedgerows of
England of Apples, Cherries and Damsons, would cost
no more than any other trees, and would be both orna-
mental and useful. These three fruit trees, once well
planted, require no other care. The impression is that
the fruit would be stolen, but I believe that to be a
matter of custom, and when once people understand that
taking fruit is stealing they cease to do it. Growing
fruit trees in open fields is universal on the Continent,
and I am told that they are never touched.

My love of autumn, with its recurring beauty, does not
dull with age or loneliness, and I am often astonished at
the interest that is still so keen about all that surrounds
me. Perhaps it ought not to be so, for I find quoted in
my notebook the following complaint:

How much is lost when neither heart nor eye

Eose- winged desire or fabling hope deceives;
When boyhood with quick throb has ceased to spy

The dubious apple in the yellow leaves ;
When, rising from the turf where youth reposed,

We find but deserts in the far-sought shore;
When the huge book of fairy-land lies closed,

And those strong brazen clasps will yield no more !

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October 16th. — The beautiful gossamer time has come
again. Most mothers now cultivate in their children a
love of flowers, but it is astonishing how rarely a love of
insects is taught. I do not mean a mawkish fear of
killing them, for very often they have to be killed. I
remember a boy who was fond, on wet summer days, of
killing flies on his nursery window. I remonstrated and
said it was cruel, upon which he answered : ' Why ?
Father goes out fishing, and brothers go out shooting ;
why may I not kill flies ? ' The only answer that came
to my mind was that I could stop the one and I could
not the other; this remained for ever with him as an
injustice. But I do think that probably the more chil-
dren understand and admire, the less they would
wish wantonly to kill, and at any rate it might do away
with so much of that groundless dread and uncon-
trollable nervous fear of insects which stick to some
people through life. I know some girls who have to
leave the room if moths — innocent, soft, downy moths!
— come in, attracted to their doom by the cruel lamp.
I know others who dare not pick certain flowers for fear
of an earwig, which from its silly name they believe to
be really a dangerous enemy. Others, again, will injure
their health and remain, all through the hot summer
nights, perhaps in quite a small room, with window and
door closed, for fear of the inroad of some winged wan-
derer of the darkness. All this seems to me so silly, so
ignorant, so unnecessary ! And if children were early
introduced to the wonders of insect life — ants, bees,
butterflies, moths, etc. — I think they would fear them
as little as the ordinary house-fly, which is really more
objectionable than many of them. I never cared much
for spiders till I heard a most interesting lecture about
them, when I longed to know more. The process by
which they weave their beautiful webs has only been

OCTOBER 53

understood in comparatively recent years. Everyone
knows now that the gossamer which covers our com-
mons is spun by spiders. In old days all sorts of fairy
traditions hung about it, as it was quite unlike the web
of other spiders. The lecturer said that spiders place
themselves with their face to the gentle breeze. This
carries the thin thread they have power to eject, with its
glutinous end, into the air till it reaches some branch or
stone or corner of leaf, to which it adheres instantly.
When this happens, the spider turns quickly round and
pulls, like any British tar, with his two front claws till
the fairy rope is tight. Then he fixes it and can travel
along it, and that is the first stage in the 'weaving,' as
the old language puts it, of his beautiful web. Spiders
belong to a kingdom ruled by women, and the female
eats up the male if she finds him troublesome and
unsatisfactory. There is a very good book about British
spiders by E. F. Staveley (L. Reeve & Co.), which would
tell all that anyone might want to know about these
insects. The first page illustrates spiders' heads, with
the varying numbers of eyes the different kinds possess.
'Gleanings in Natural History,' by Edward Jesse, is
a book I can indeed recommend to all lovers of natural
history. The first edition is dated ' Hampton Court,
1842.' For all of us who live near Hampton Court the
book has a double interest, as he was Surveyor of Her
Majesty's Parks and Palaces, and lived there, and many
of his anecdotes are connected with the neighbourhood.
His opening words are : ' One of the chief objects I had
in writing the following pages was to portray the
character of animals, and to endeavour to excite more
kindly feelings towards them.' It is a kind of half-way
book between Gilbert White and the scientific writings
of the present day; and all natural instincts and facts
are accounted for in what the most ignorant, since the

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days of Darwin, would describe as the unscientific
language belonging to that date. To my mind, that in
no way detracts from the interest of its shrewd observa-
tions on the facts of nature.

To name another book in this place, 'Country Pleas-
ures : Chronicle of a Year chiefly in a Garden,' by
George Milner, has been lately republished and thor-
oughly deserves it, as it is one of the best of its kind,
and must be an especial favourite with all nature lovers.
Its charm is of rather a different kind from either of the
other two. The writing is beautiful, and the quotations
are pointed, and chosen with literary taste and knowl-
edge. Here are two sentences which I give in order
that the charm may be felt. One is dated 'May 22d,'
for the book is arranged in months, which seems to me
the only natural system when speaking of the year's
produce and colour -effects in field, wood, or garden :

'In the present general outburst of vernal foliage, we
naturally forget that the evergreens, as well as the
deciduous trees, are putting forth their new leaves.
This is one of those lesser beauties of the spring, easily
overlooked, but full of interest when once observed.
The yew-tree now shows itself as a mass of leafage, so
dark as to be almost black, but wearing a fringe of yel-
lowish green ; the box has six or seven bright new
leaves at the end of each spray, in sharp contrast with
the sombre but polished growth of last year ; the ivy
buds are silver -gray, like the willow; those of the
holly are edged with red, and the rhododendron is a
light green. In that delightfully child -like carol of Kit
Marlowe, which gave such pleasure to the gentle soul
of dear old Izaak Walton, the Passionate Shepherd
promises to his Love

'A belt of straw and ivy buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs.'

OCTOBER 55

Once every year, in the autumn, and sometimes twice,
I go to the east coast, and the house is so absolutely
on the seashore that this description in 'Country
Pleasures ' exactly suits what I feel when I am there.
It is, I think, so good that it may be an inducement for
my readers to get the book for themselves : ' It is often
said that the sea is both monotonous and melancholy,
but the longer we remain in its close neighbourhood the
less are we disposed to allow that it is monotonous.
Melancholy it may be, as it is fierce or wild or lovely by
turns, but it is not monotonous. Rather it is, next to
the sky, the most changeful thing we know: and by this
I do not mean only the obvious motion and restlessness
of the waves, but the more subtle and ever -vary ing
alternation of the whole aspect of the sea. It is usual
to suppose that these moods are mainly in the mind of
the observer; but that is not so. The sea, like nature
generally, has its own absolute conditions — conditions
which prompt and suggest, rather than follow, emotions
in the mind of man. To feel all this, however, one
must live continuously near the sea.' I do not agree
that this is really necessary in order to appreciate the
sea. I think one does feel all Mr. Milner describes, even
if one goes only for a short time, so long as one lives
close to the shore, no going out of the house being
necessary in order to see the sea, still less a long walk,
which means remaining only a few minutes by the
waves. Mr. Milner continues : ' We are so contiguous
to the sea here that, looking through the window as I
write, I can see nothing but the wide stretch of waters,
just as I should if I were sitting in the cabin of a vessel;
and if I stand at the door I can fling a stone into the
fringe of the tide. Crossing the road, one step brings
me to the shore ; and here you may sit all the day long,
with the sea breeze blowing round you and the sound of

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the water ever in your ears. This sound is usually resolv-
able into three elements. There is, first, the great boom
of the waves, the chorus of many waters, far and near,
heard in one deep unison ; then there is a noise as of
liquid being poured continuously out of one vessel into
another — that, I think, is caused by the falling crest of
the waves ; and lastly, there is a low and lisping talk
ever going on between the water and the pebbles.' I
call that an excellent word -rendering of sea -sounds.
Then: ' In the pools and tiny basins there are a thou-
sand fairy creatures, whose motions you may watch even
as you lie reposing — green and thread-like tentacula
issuing and retreating, purple atoms spinning round and
round in some strange dance which is the beginning and
end of their existence, gorgeous anemones, and many a
tiny shell, delicately built and cunningly colored :

'Slight, to be crush 'd with a tap
Of my finger-nail on the sand,

Small, but a work divine ;
Frail, but of force to withstand,
Year upon year, the shock
Of cataract seas that snap

The three-decker's oaken spine
Athwart the ledges of rock.'

In mentioning these books, I mean no slight on any
that I am not fortunate enough to know. I have kept
to the same rule which I found necessary with the old
garden -books — of only naming those that I not only
know, but possess.

October 20ih. — I have been very busy here hollowing
out new rockeries and digging deep holes, eight to twelve
feet deep, and throwing up the sandy earth on either
side, so making slopes and mounds of earth. Small,
narrow paths lead into these hollows, and instead of
catching the water at the bottom, as I did before, I

OCTOBER 57

keep the bottom dry, and sink petroleum barrels level
with the ground to catch the water as it runs down the
paths when rain falls, or after watering with a hose. In
the tall walls of sandy earth every sort of aspect is to be
found, little hollows are made, and all kinds of treasures
can be planted on the flat or the slope. By making
holes in the sandy walls, and helping to fix the plants
with a mixture of cow- dung and clay, they adhere quite
well on the steep slope. On one side of these sunk
rockeries, so as still more to keep off the north-east
wind, there is a wall about four feet in width and four
feet high, built up gradually with pieces of stone and
earth between them — no mortar. This makes an excel-
lent cool depth of soil for many precious plants. A small
boggy bed can be made, by guiding the rain as it runs
away into a hole, anywhere by the sides of paths and
where the earth slopes. This immensely increases the
effect of rainfall for individual plants, and it is a great
help to gardening on sandy soils. The fault of my
rockery, unavoidable from the situation, is that it has
very little eastern aspect, being shaded in that direction
by trees ; and morning sun is what early Alpines require.
As the holes approach the large trees, the banks are
planted with Ferns, various Ivies, Periwinkles (Vinca),
and shade -loving plants. Pernettyas, which are lovely
little shrubs, will not do in sun at all ; but in shade
they seem to do excellently, and are quite healthy in
sandy soil. All those I planted in full sun have simply
died this dry year, having been very much parched up.
Cotoneaster microphylla, on the contrary, never berries
so well or is so satisfactory as in a very dry place fully
exposed to the southern sun.

The other day, as I was working in this new Alpine
garden, a caterpillar fell off a tree just in front of me.
His head was round ; he had a hairy body, plump and

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thickest in the middle, covered with moderately abundant
hairs; and four square -topped bunches of hair of a pale
yellow colour grew on his back. His head and body
were green; his long, pointed tail bright pink. The spaces
between the tufts of hair were deep black. His legs and
pro-legs were green. I thought I had got hold of some
wonderful rare beast, as I had never before found a
caterpillar with a pink tail like a horn. A friend to
whom I refer all my natural history questions informed
me that this was the caterpillar of a moth called the
'Pale Tussock ' because of the tussocks upon his body.
The moth is pale gray coloured, with various markings,
and is fairly common. He feeds upon most trees, often
on Oak, but also on Hazel, Birch, and — oddly enough
—Hops. He will eat Plum and Pear.

October 23rd.— I have found that Crocus speciosus
does admirably in this very light soil, and comes up year
after year, but is very much better not disturbed, when
it decidedly increases. Young plants of variegated Maple
look very pretty planted in clumps in front of a shrub-
bery, especially if backed by small plants of Prurnis
pissardi. The planting of Rosemary under shrubs, no
matter what aspect, has answered perfectly, and in this
way I have a lot of the delicious stuff, not only to burn
in my own house, but to give away.

October 25th. — We have improved on the cultivation
of watercress in a dry garden by sowing it in a wide
trench with the sides supported by two old boards, and
close to a tap, so that it can be easily watered. In
October some of the plants are dug up, put into a box
and then placed in a cold frame, so I get fresh water-
cress for tea through the cold weather. In London it is
easy to get everything more or less good, but this is not
at all the case in the country. What you do not grow
you generally have to do without, and even if watercress

OCTOBER 59

can be bought, there is the additional advantage of safety
in growing it on clean ground instead of buying it out
of a dirty ditch, when it often tastes of mud.

I find that in Germany the roots of the pink Oxalis
floribunda are eaten as a vegetable, and a most excellent
vegetable it is. It is not quite hardy. The way to treat
it is to take it up about this time of year, eat the big
roots, preserve the small ones in sand, and re -plant them
in the spring. Celeriac and salsifies are also much
better taken up now and stored in dry sand under cover,
like carrots. They grow old and spotty if left in the
ground in the usual English way.

Before cutting down our asparagus we collect the
pretty red seeds, sow them at once very thickly in ordi-
nary or fancy china pots, and keep some for later sowing.
The seedlings come in well as an ornament in the green-
house at Christmas, look green and fresh and refined,
and most people do not know what they are. They have
the great merit of costing nothing and of being very
easy to grow for anyone who has a warm greenhouse.

October 28th. — We are benefiting now by the extra-
ordinarily dry autumn and no early frost. The number
of flowers in the garden is quite surprising. I picked
this morning a large bunch of Nemesia. The Lavenders
are flowering a second time, and there are plenty
of Tea Roses.

The following instructions for growing the Tro-
pcsolum speciosum, which has failed here so often, were
sent me by a lady: 'The two great needs seem to be
moisture — but not great moisture — at the roots and
dampness of atmosphere round the foliage when in
summer growth. These objects are best obtained by —
first, in England, or at least in the southern counties, a
north wall ; second, by being planted about two feet
deep in a trench properly prepared for it ; third, by fre-

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quently syringing in the summer. I have found a
trench a foot wide and a foot and a half deep suit it
best. But if the subsoil is clay or a tenacious soil, the
trench should be made two feet deep, the bottom six
inches being filled with drainage — pieces of broken
stones or brick. The soil with which it is next filled
should be peat and ordinary loam in equal proportions,
with a little sand and leaf -mould thrown in and thor-
oughly mixed with the whole. Sphagnum cut and
chopped into small bits — this retains the moisture,
which is as essential as that it should not be stagnant.
The young plants should be put in in the autumn pref-
erably to the spring. It is important that the soil in
which the roots are growing should vary as little as
possible in moistness, never getting dryer at one time
than at another.'

The two Japanese grasses, Eulalia Japonica varie-
gata and zebrina, do not throw up their flower panicles
here quite early enough to come to perfection, but I
learnt last summer that if the cane containing the flower
(this is easily distinguished by feeling a certain fulness
near the top) is picked and brought into the house, the
grass will dry ; it should then be peeled off, and the
feathery panicles will display themselves (see illustra-
tion in ' English Flower Garden' ) . They make a pretty
and refined winter decoration, and they are just the
right size to mix with the red -berried pods of Iris
fcetidissima. The seed -branches of Montbretias are also
a pretty addition to a dry winter bouquet.

Plumbago rosea is a very pretty autumn -flowering
greenhouse plant. It wants to be grown in a fairly
warm house ; but, once in flower, a cool greenhouse
seems to suit it well. Its growth is very different from
the other Plumbagos, and the pink of its flower is of an
unusually beautiful hue. It is not difficult to strike.

OCTOBER 61

RECEIPTS

I have two amusing little books by the same author —
kind of 'Pot Pourris' of the early 'sixties — one called
'Dinners and Dinner Parties' and the other 'The Gen-
tlewoman.' They are full of good advice and receipts,
some of which I think are worth copying, but the chief
amusement is to see how the advice they give has grown
and spread, and is so much less really wanted than it
was thirty -five years 'ago. The anonymous writer is
extremely sarcastic about the neglect of household duties
by women of all classes. Now, perhaps, the absorption
in domestic arrangements and refined luxuries is almost
carried to the extreme. Most newspapers have menus,
and the cookery books are innumerable. One paragraph
in ' The Gentlewoman' is headed, ' The Great Evil in
England,' and runs as follows : ' The great social evil is
not that which is talked of by gentlemen in black at
midnight meetings; but it is the great evil that besets
the English from the highest to the lowest. Every man,
woman, and child suffers from it, and thousands die or
only experience a lingering existence from its neglect.
The great social evil is the want of persons of education
and practical knowledge worthy to be entrusted in the
preparation of food with that care and nicety that is
practised in every nation in Europe except England,
whereby health would be no longer jeopardised, and
twenty millions of money would annually be saved.
There would be ample employment for every poor lady
who, for the want of domestic knowledge, is doomed to
life -long misery.' The writer further complains that
ladies do not go to market, that young gentlewomen do
not look after their own wardrobes, and is full of com-
passion for the poor father who has the task of provid-
ing a sufficient dowry for each girl. His language must

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always have been exaggerated, and it is certainly untrue
in our day. The 'Stores' have replaced the old
markets, and without doubt ladies, and even gentle-
men, do go to them — tiresome places though they are—
and the girls of the present day are very few who do not
look after and think about their clothes. Fathers still
find the same difficulty in providing dowries for their
daughters ; but the girls themselves — among them those
who have every right, from the way they have been
brought up, to look for dowries — are now always striv-
ing to do some work of their own. The over -strained
gentility that my author speaks of does still and must
always exist. He touches on too many subjects for me
to go on quoting him. But the employments he recom-
mends for women, laying especial stress on nursing, do
make one realize the changes and the improvements of
the last thirty years. All his advice about stores and
cooking utensils and general management of the kitchen
is excellent. It is carried out far more in the beautiful
kitchens of modern Germany than anywhere here. He
is as strong as even I could wish about the use of earth-
enware casseroles and fireproof dishes. But both
servants and mistresses hate them because of the
breakage, which, of course, is very troublesome ; and
the excessive heat of our fireplaces makes them more
difficult to manage. English servants, too, are so con-
servative that it is extremely difficult to interfere in any
way with their method of work. They only like to do
things as they have always been done.

On looking over these two books, I find the receipts so
good and so unlike those in the ordinary cookery book
that I shall copy several of them to disperse through the
months as they seem to me seasonable. It is often
difficult to remember how each generation requires to be
told the same things over again. Among other good

OCTOBER 63

and useful hints, one is to keep a supply of corks for
putting into any bottle that has been opened, so that it
can be turned over on its head in the store closet and
thus prevent the air from getting to the contents. This
ensures your not having to buy a fresh bottle of oil for
every third salad, or a fresh bottle of anchovy when you
require only a teaspoonful. I am afraid the modern
cooks are rare who will take the trouble to attend to
such details.

This dressing of two chickens in different ways for
one dinner party is rather original, so I copy it out of
' The Gentlewoman 7 just as it is :

'Two Chickens for Eight Persons.— Abandon the
boiled fowl fashion; order a pair of fowls to be sent
without being trussed, and let the heads and necks be
sent with them. Cut up one of the fowls into pieces —
the leg and thigh into two pieces, the back into three
pieces, and the breast into two pieces, which, with the
merry -thought, will be fourteen pieces.

' Take a Spanish onion, cut it up small, put it into a
stewpan with two ounces of butter and a little pepper
and salt ; let it stew gently for about an hour, until it is
in a complete pulp. Half an hour before you want it,
put in the fourteen pieces of chicken, let them stew half
an hour, and when done put into your silver dish a tea-
spoonful of Spanish or French garlic vinegar, or, if that
is not liked, the squeeze of half a lemon, and you will
never again want to taste insipid boiled fowl. Mind, it
requires no water ; the fowl will be done in its
own gravy.

'Cut the other fowl in the same way; viz., fourteen
pieces. Let the heads and necks be picked and scalded;
stew them in half a pint of water, and when all the
goodness is extracted strain off the liquor, put it into a
stewpan with a pint of button mushrooms, a little pepper

64 MORE POT-POURRI

and salt, and put in the fourteen pieces of fowl, stew
them until done (about half an hour), thicken with a
little arrowroot. When you dish them up, put into
your silver dish a tablespoonful of mushroom catchup.
These two fowls will be a variety, will require only the
effort of serving, will be enough for eight or ten per-
sons, and each convive will want to taste each dish.

' Pigeons, when in season, cooked in the same manner
are equally good, and make a change — such a change
that those who taste it never forget. Grouse and par-
tridges treated the same way are better than roasted.

'A young turkey poult dressed in the same way is a
very inviting dish.'

Towards the middle of October I buy two or three
young turkeys in Suffolk, and feed them here till a fort-
night before Christmas. They must be starved twenty-
four hours before killing, and require to hang about a
fortnight. They should not be plucked or cleaned out
till they are going to be cooked.

Chervil Soup.— Pick, wash, and chop fine a very
large handful of chervil. Melt a piece of butter the size
of an egg, with two tablespoonfuls of good flour. Stir
smooth. Do not let it colour at all; then add the chervil,
and let it simmer ten minutes, stirring well. Pour on it
sufficient stock or water (water is quite as good as stock,
in my opinion) to make the soup (rather less than more,
as one can easily add a drop if too thick) . Let it boil
half an hour. Just before serving the soup, put the
yolks of two fresh eggs, one teacupful of milk or cream
and a bit of sweet butter, well mixed together and
beaten up, into the soup tureen ; pour the boiling soup
into this thickening, stirring it well till mixed. The
same receipt exactly applies to sorrel soup.

To Dress Fresh-water Fish.— Bone the fish and
lay it flat in a fireproof dish, with small pieces of butter

OCTOBER 65

underneath the fish. Chop half an onion and three or
four washed anchovies, brown them in a little butter in
a small copper saucepan; pour this mixture all along
over the fish. Strew lightly with very dry breadcrumbs
grated from a brown roll or the crust of a loaf. Add in
the dish a few spoonfuls of good brown sauce, and baste
the fish in the oven till cooked. Serve in the fireproof
dish in which it was cooked.

In Germany they still use fresh -water fish almost as
much as they do in France, and obviously for the same
reasons. A full account of these reasons is most excel-
lently given in Mrs. Roundell' s ' Practical Cookery
Book,' under the head of 'Pond Fish.' Sea fish in
England is so plentiful that I do not believe, in these
days of quick carriage, that fresh -water fish will ever
be again a matter of trade, though even this we cannot
say for certain. The fishmongers and fishermen are so
absolutely determined to ruin our fish supply by cover-
ing it with that injurious chemical, boracic acid, very
often before it leaves the coast, that I, for one, would
greatly prefer a freshly netted pond fish. Boracic acid
can be easily recognised, when the fish is cooked, by the
purple line that lies along the spine in soles, whiting,
haddock, plaice, etc. It is introduced under the gill,
and I fancy with experience one would soon recognise
it even before the fish is cooked. But the use of it is
now so universal, alas! that a young cook can hardly be
expected to know what fish looked like without it. I
cannot understand why people who possess large places
with rivers, lakes, ponds, game -keepers, and, in fact*,
every facility for having fresh -water fish, are yet con-
tent to do without so good a variety of food.

One reason is that the cooks do not know how to
cook it properly, and the mistresses of the house do not
take the trouble to teach them. The Izaak Walton

66 MORE POT-POURRI

receipts are very inadequate, and depend almost entirely
for success on cooking the fish the very moment it is
taken out of the water. In France, fish that cannot be
cooked immediately is always marinaded. (See 'Dainty
Dishes.') Mrs. Roundell entirely does away with the
terrible superstition that has always haunted my imagi-
nation as a fact, that eels have to be skinned alive as
lobsters are boiled alive. She is silent on the subject of
lobsters, but with regard to eels she distinctly says :
'Kill them first, and skin them afterwards.'

Endive (French receipt). — Boil the leaves in lots
of salt and water, just as if you were doing spinach or
cabbage. When tender, pour the whole thing on to a
large sieve, and as soon as the hot water has drained
away put the sieve under a tap and let cold water run
en it for some minutes. This applies to the boiling of
all green vegetables — cabbages, sorrel, cauliflowers,
cos -lettuce, cabbage -lettuce, etc. After the cold water,
put the endive on a chopping -board, or, if required to
be quite smooth as a purte, rub it through a fine hair
sieve. In both these cases return it to the fire, after
having first put, in a china saucepan, a pat of butter to
dissolve with one spoonful of fine flour. Do not put the
vegetable in before the butter and flour are well amalga-
mated. When this is achieved, stir the vegetable well
up with the butter and flour, and let it simmer for
another fifteen minutes. Add a little cream or milk
quite at the last moment, just to make it soft and pretty.
It must not be thicker than a thin purfo.

Endive (in the German way). — Cut up the endive
quite coarsely, wash it in lots of cold water, and throw
it, very wet, into an earthenware pot in which a large
piece of butter has been dissolved; no salt nor anything
else. Put the lid on, and simmer gently for three or four
hours. Add salt the last minute, and no flour at all.

OCTOBER 67

Canard a la Rouennaise.— Take the fillets of two
ducks. Put them into a buttered saute-pan, and poach
for five minutes in a good oven. When done, cut them
out with a cutlet -cutter, and spread on one side of each
fillet some liver force-meat, then chaud-froid over with
some tomato sauce. When set, dish them flat on the
entree dish with some aspic, some skinned grapes in
the centre, and a grape here and there. Serve with
grape salad.

Puree of Carrots. — Get some nice red carrots; slice
them thin. Add an onion, also sliced, a little celery,
and a turnip. Braise all together in some weak stock,
or water, until quite tender. Pass the whole through a
tammy or hair sieve. About an hour before serving,
place it in a stewpan over the fire and let it gently sim-
mer to clarify. Season with sugar and salt, and work
in a little cream just before serving.

Poulet a la Mareng-o.— Have some nice young
chickens, cut them up neatly, and put them into a saute-
pan with a little salad oil, one onion, a small piece of
parsley, and thyme ; season with pepper and salt, cover
the saute-pan with the lid, and boil till sufficiently
browned. Then add some good brown stock, and stew
for some time, finish with a good glass of madeira
(optional). Dish up with fried eggs round. Fry the
eggs in salad oil.

Chestnuts au Jus.— Remove the outer skin and
throw the chestnuts into boiling water, to enable you
to remove the inner skin as well; then lay them in cold
water while the following mixture is prepared : Stir two
tablespoonfuls of sugar into an ounce of butter, in a
sauce -pan, till the sugar is browned, let it boil up, add
a little cold water. Put in the chestnuts, simmer till
tender, but do not shake them (to avoid crumbling).
Just before serving, add a few spoonfuls of very good

68 MORE POT-POURRI

strong glaze. Onions, small turnips, and oxalises can
be done in the same way. We find all these equally
good without the meat glaze.

Celeriac Salad. — A most excellent autumn salad is
celeriac well boiled, cut in slices like beetroot, mixed
with a light mayonnaise sauce, half oil and half cream,
surrounded by a wreath of what they call in Germany
'garden -cress,' which is merely the cress we grow in
spring in a box, allowed to grow out of doors in summer
till about the size of parsley. It grows all the summer
through in the garden, and can be cut over and over
again. When grown in boxes in the winter, it should be
allowed to grow on, instead of cutting it quite young.

I have always considered salads a strong point with
me, and was much amused the other day, when reading
Sydney Smith's ' Memoirs ' by his daughter, at the fol-
lowing description of his experiences with salads. I
think his receipt so clever that I have extracted it, with
the feeling that it was better to have it in two books
than in only one, so that it may give pleasure to more
people. He says: ' Our forte in the culinary line is our
salad. I pique myself on our salads. Saba always
dresses them after my recipe. I have put it into verse.
Taste it, and if you like it I will give it to you. I was
not aware how much it had contributed to my reputa-
tion till I met Lady , at Bowood, who begged to be

introduced to me, saying she had so long wished to know
me. I was, of course, highly flattered, till she added :
"For, Mr. Smith, I have heard so much of your recipe
for salads that I was most anxious to obtain it from

' To make this condiment your poet begs
The pounded yellow of two hard-boil'd eggs;
Two boil'd potatoes, passed through kitchen sieve,
Smoothness and softness to the salad give.

OCTOBER 69

Let onion atoms lurk within the bowl

And, half -suspected, animate the whole.

Of mordant mustard add a single spoon,

Distrust the condiment that bites so soon ;

But deem it not, thou man of herbs, a fault

To add a double quantity of salt.

Four times the spoon with oil from Lucca brown,

And twice with vinegar procured from town ;

And, lastly, o'er the flavoured compound toss

A magic soupcon of anchovy sauce.

Oh, green and glorious! Oh, herbaceous treat!

'Twould tempt the dying anchorite to eat;

Back to the world he'd turn his fleeting soul,

And plunge his fingers in the salad bowl J

Serenely full, the epicure would say,

"Fate cannot harm me— I have dined to-day." '

Fried (German) Pudding. — To make the batter
put two pints of milk to boil, with a tiny pinch of salt
and two ounces of butter. When boiling, stir in very
smoothly eight ounces of finest Hungarian flour. (Use
no other flour than Hungarian or Austrian for all sweets
and sauces.) Stir till the batter recedes from the sides
of the stewpan, then pour it into a dish to get cold.
Add six eggs and two spoonfuls of rum ; mix gently.
Put a deep iron pan full of frying -fat on the fire, but
let it get only moderately hot. Fry the batter in round
balls in the following way : To make this very German
pudding properly, one should have a large tin syringe,
made specially for the purpose, but in its absence the
batter must be taken up by small teaspoonfuls and
dropped into the fry ing -fat. It will form round balls,
which should be constantly moved about with a spoon
to get them golden -coloured all over. When they show
little cracks they are sufficiently done. For this method
the batter should be made a little stiffer than for the
syringe by adding a little more flour. Serve with dis-
solved fruit syrup or custard.

70 MORE POT-POURRI

Gateau Savarin. — Ingredients : A little less than
one pint of milk, six ounces of butter, ten eggs, two
ounces of pounded sugar, one pound of good Hungarian
flour, sifted, grated peel of two lemons, two ounces of
good German yeast, a pinch of salt. Put one -fifth part
of the flour, the yeast, and the milk together in a deep
basin, and work them to a stiff paste ; cover with a
cloth, and stand in a tepid place till it swells to double
its size. Put all the other ingredients into a much
larger basin, mix them very vigorously and thoroughly
with the hands for ten minutes, then work into this the
first paste with the yeast in it. When all is well incor-
porated, work it for another fifteen minutes. Fill the
tin or earthenware Savarin shapes with paste to one-
third of their height, having first greased them well
inside with melted butter. Stand them in a warm place
till the paste has risen to the very top. Put them in a
rather slow oven for twenty-five to thirty minutes. When
well coloured, but not brown, turn them out and pour
rum punch over them, taking care not to sodden them.

I had occasion, at the end of this month last year
(1897), to go to Germany, to the neighbourhood of
Frankfort. The journey, about twenty -five hours from
London, is wonderfully easy. My friends said : 'What !
go all that way for ten days?' But, in fact, it means
far less time and money than did a journey to Devon-
shire, or even the Isle of Wight, to our grandmothers.
I had never seen the Rhine before in late autumn. The
late vintage was just over, and the vines and the earth
seemed one even brown, diversified at times with yellow
leaves hanging thinly on the poplars and the low oak
brushwood bronze and gold against the sky. It seems
bathos to say so, but the Rhine runs so due north and
south that it reminded me of my winter walks in Sloane

OCTOBER 71

street. The sun was always in one's eyes in the middle
of the day, and behind the hills morning and evening;
and the fogs hung about the river as they do between
the houses in the street. How entirely the Rhine of
Turner and Byron has ceased to be ! All the beautiful,
picturesque boats, barges, rafts, etc., with white or tan
sails, that trailed their long reflections in the broad
river, representing the commercial industries of the
people, which had been growing from the commence-
ment of history — all this has completely disappeared.
On the main, I saw one or two of the old-fashioned large
rafts, not towed by steamers, but punted by the graceful
little black figures, ceaselessly labouring up and down
a small portion of the raft and pushing it with long
poles. On the Rhine, everything was towed by steamers
of various sizes and kinds. As I sped along in the
luxurious railway carriage, and noticed the road beside
the river turning and twisting along the bank, I could
not but think of the changes since the days when all
travelling was done by carriages and lumbering dili-
gences. In Moore's 'Life of Byron,' which I used to
think such a delightful book, but which now is some-
what sneered at as unfair book -making by Byron
biographers, there is a detailed account of the way the
rich and great journeyed at the beginning of the cen-
tury : ' Lord Byron travelled in a huge coach copied
from the celebrated one of Napoleon, taken at Genappe,
with additions. Besides a lit de repos, it contained a
library, a plate chest, and every apparatus for dining in
it. It was not, however, found sufficiently capacious for
his baggage and suite, and he purchased a caUcJie at
Brussels for his servants.' So travelled the man whom
Lady Caroline Lamb attempts to describe, in her famous
though dull novel of 'Glenavon,' with the motto:

He left a name to all succeeding times
Link'd with one virtue and a thousand crimes.

72 MORE POT-POURRI

The train sped along, and the weather was beautiful.
We were not parboiled in the carriages, as they do not
warm them before the 1st of November. My friend
lived out of Frankfort, on the slopes of the Taunus
Mountains, under the towers of the mediaeval Castle of
Cronberg. Land is not, I fancy, to be bought in Ger-
many except close to the towns ; all the forests belong
to the State, and are not sold. I was surprised to find
in this delightful home of my Cronberg friends, in the
very kingdom of stoves, as we consider Germany, that
one of the rooms was warmed by an Irish stove, made
by Messrs. Musgrave, of Bond street, exactly like the
one I find so invaluable for keeping my own little house
at an even temperature. I cannot imagine why any
English house not warmed with hot pipes is ever
without one of these stoves. They burn only coke, they
require very little stoking, they keep in a very long
time, and they never unpleasantly dry the air or cause
the least smell. I afterwards found that the shops in
Frankfort were full of English goods. This is some
consolation for us when things we buy are so constantly
marked ' made in Germany' .

My bedroom at Cronberg looked north, and faced a
long line of sunlit Taunus Mountains, clothed with oak
woods in all their autumn glory. They were intersected
with pine woods, which in previous months must have
looked dull and dark against the summer green, but in
late October they were shining bright against the red
gold of the dying woods. They reminded me of one of
4 Bethia Hardacre's' truest touches of colour :

Silver and pearl-white sky,

Hills of dim amethyst,
Bracken to gold changed by

Autumn, the Alchemist.

OCTOBER 73

Spikes of bright yellow poplars here and there marked
the road as it wound up the hill, to lose itself in the
silent forest. The walls of my bedroom were hung
round with photographs and prints, remembrances
brought back by my cosmopolitan hostess from various
countries. They were most of them known to me, but
one print was quite a stranger and very striking. It was
of a picture, I was told, by a Swiss artist called Arnold
Boecklin, a celebrated man, though unknown to me. On
the white margin of the print were written the simple
words : Todten-Insel. The print represents an imag-
inary burial-place : A high, rocky island, with a
suggestion of big caves in the rock and windows made
by man. In the middle a little open space, with tall,
upright groups of splendid Italian cypresses, which seem
to be mournfully swaying in the wind. Down the rocks
on each side tumble somewhat conventional waterfalls
into a fathomless ocean, perhaps meant to be typical
of life and death. Two white stone posts on each side
of a step mark the entrance to this sombre garden of
peace and rest. On the foreground of calm water floats
a black boat, which approaches this entrance rowed by
a solitary dark figure — a realistic Charon. Across the
front of the boat lies the dead ; and a radiant, draped,
mysterious mourner, with head bowed over the inevi-
table sorrow of mankind, stands erect in the middle of
the boat. The combination of the horizontal dead
figure and the upright mourner, in their white draperies,
seems to form a shining cross against the deep shade of
the cypresses. This print fascinated me, with its eternal
facts transcribed into an allegory by a man of genius.
The picture from which it is taken is a replica, with
many alterations, of one painted some years ago which
I have seen. But, judging from the print, I believe
that the last -painted one is the finest. Certainly the

74 MORE POT-POURRI

allegorical details in this later one are brought out with
greater distinctness. Several of Herr Boecklin's pic-
tures have been bought by his native town of Bale,
and, later on, I will describe how I spent a night there
on purpose to see them. After ray return home I came
across an interesting description of Herr Boecklin and
his work, in a lately published book called ' The History
of Modern Painting/ by Richard Muther, from which
the following extract will perhaps make others wish as
much as I do to see his pictures. Mr. Muther says of
him that : ' He belonged to the very time when Richard
Wagner lured the colours of sound from music with a
glow and light such as no master had kindled before
Boecklin's symphonies of colour streamed forth like a
crashing orchestra. The whole scale, from the most
sombre depth to the most chromatic light, was at his
command. In his pictures of spring the colour laughs,
rejoices, and exults. In the "Isle of the Dead," it
seems as though a veil of crepe were spread over the
sea, the sky, and the trees Many of his pic-
tures have such an ensnaring brilliancy that the eye is
never weary of feasting upon their floating splendour.
Indeed, later generations will probably do him honour
as the greatest colour -poet of the century, and, at the
same time, they will learn from his works that at the
close of this same unstable century there were complete
and healthy human beings. . . . The more modern
sentiment became emancipated, the more did artists
venture to feel with their own nerves and not with those
of earlier generations, and the more it became evident
that modern sentiment is almost always disordered,
recklessly despairing, unbelieving, and weary of life.
Boecklin, the most modern of modern painters, possesses
that quality of iron health of which modernity knows
so little.'

OCTOBER 75

To return to my time in Germany. The weather
grew cold and foggy, and my expeditions from Cronberg
into Frankfort were fewer than I could have wished,
and many sights I did not see at all.

Among the towns of which I have an early, though
faint, recollection, not even Paris itself is more utterly
and entirely changed than Frankfort. Only here and
there does anything remain that recalls Goethe's descrip-
tion, so familiar to the readers of his ever -enchanting
autobiography, that perfect mixture, ' Truth and Poetry.'
The Jewish cemetery, full of interest with its unbroken
record from the twelfth century, I did not see, though to
my mind it must be one of the most interesting spots in
Europe. This feeling would only be understood by the
English, the awful hatred of the Jews — universal on
the Continent — being happily unknown to us. The
world changes so much, and yet so much remains the
same. Who would have imagined that at the end of the
nineteenth century Jewish persecution would be the
same as in the Middle Ages ? If it were possible, would
not the gates of the Ghetto be shut in the same cruel
and unjust way as years ago ? Hatred of the Jews
seems to me the one real bond that unites France,
Germany, and Russia. It is generally attributed to
Disraeli, but I believe it was Heine who first said :
' Every nation has the kind of Jew it deserves.'

I am told that in this Jewish cemetery at Frankfort
the surnames on the tombstones date back in many cases
three hundred years. The old graves have generally
only a first name (one cannot say Christian name), with
a locality, mentioned ; as, for instance, ' Hannah of
Hamburg.' The Jews seem to regard this cemetery as
an even truer record of their families than we consider
our peerage. The Judengasse has virtually disappeared.
I never saw it but once in my childhood, when I felt the

76 MORE POT-POURRI

same kind of mixed awe and curiosity with which
Goethe speaks of it. There is a sketch of it in that
never-to-be-forgotten volume of our young days, 'The
Foreign Tour of Messrs. Brown, Jones, and Robinson,'
by Dickie Doyle. His drawing gives a somewhat spiteful
version of it, but it is a funny remembrance of this
swept -away quarter. Lewes says Goethe learnt much
from the society of the Jews in the strange, old, filthy,
but deeply interesting Judengasse. Like him, we have
all pondered over ' the sun standing still on Gideon and
the moon in the valley of Ajalon.'

It was with a genuine thrill that I entered Goethe's
house, where he was born, where he lived, where he
played and ate and slept and loved Gretchen, and which
— angry and disappointed at being described as the boy
he really was — he left, with the indifference usual at
that age, to seek his fortunes in the world. As he says
himself : 'At certain epochs children part from parents,
servants from masters, proUgtis from their patrons ; and
whether it succeed or not, such an attempt to stand on
one's own feet, to make one's self independent, to live
for one's self, is always in accordance with the will
of nature.'

I am so fond of Goethe's sayings that they stick
somehow in my mind, in spite of my bad memory. He
says somewhere so truly, and it refers to this entrance
into life that all have to face : ' Every man has his
decoy, and every man is led or misled in a way peculiar
to himself.' How frequently Goethe's sayings remind
one of Lord John Russell's apt definition of a proverb,
'One man's wit and all men's wisdom! ' Goethe's house
in the Hirschgraben is now a museum, bought by the
Goethe Society, whose headquarters are at Weimar, and
restored by them with reverent care. Every effort is
made to preserve it and what it contains from decay.

OCTOBER 77

Such guardians are necessary ; they hold the hand of
the destroyer and arrest decay, keeping for posterity
what we ourselves highly value. The old house where
Luther rested for the night on his way to the Diet of
Worms was being levelled to the ground this summer
before my eyes, to make room for a handsome entrance
into the courtyard of a large white stucco house. So
incongruous was this building to the old sixteenth-
century street that had I seen it suddenly I should have
said it was a residence, not in Frankfort, but in the
Quartier St. Germain in Paris. I honour all societies
that save us from this wholesale destruction of the past.
In the Goethe house-museum there were some of
Goethe's drawings, which made me sympathise more
than I had ever done before with Lewes' somewhat
bitter reproaches about the time Goethe wasted on
drawing. Lewes says : 'All his study and all his prac-
tice were vain ; he never attained even the excellence of
an amateur. To think of a Goethe thus obstinately
cultivating a branch of art for which he had no talent
makes us look with kinder appreciation on the spectacle,
so frequently presented, of really able men obstinately
devoting themselves to produce poetry no cultivated man
can read ; men whose culture and insight are insufficient
to make them perceive in themselves the difference be-
tween aspiration and inspiration.'

I also went alone to the suburb of Sachsenhausen
to see the Staedel Art Institute. Frederick Staedel, in
1816, bequeathed his pictures and engravings and
100,0002. to his native town. This formed the nucleus
of the present gallery. Many pictures have been added
since his death, and in many ways the collection is an
interesting one. I stood long before a picture which
the inscription on the frame told me had been presented
by a Baroness Rothschild. Having no catalogue, and

78 MORE POT-POURRI

feeling shy about asking in German, I neither knew nor
guessed what it was or why it was there. It powerfully
arrested my attention — a life-sized picture of a man of
about forty, sitting in a gray, flowing overcoat, on gray
stones in the gray Campagna of Rome. Afterwards I
was told that it was the famous picture of Goethe by
Johann Friedrich Tischbein. This painter lived from
1750 to 1812 — that is to say, only a part of the life of
Goethe, who was born a year before Tischbein and died
in 1832. He, therefore, was thirty- seven when he wrote
in the letters from Italy, December, 1786, as follows :
' Latterly I have often observed Tischbein attentively
regarding me ; and now it appears he has long cherished
the idea of painting my portrait. His design is already
settled and the canvas stretched. I am to be drawn the
size of life, enveloped in a white mantle, and sitting on
a fallen obelisk, viewing the ruins of the Campagna di
Roma, which are to fill up the background of the
picture. It will form a beautiful piece, only it will be
rather too large for our northern habitations. I indeed
may crawl into them, but the portrait will never be
able to enter their door.'

This is the exact description of the picture as it now
is. Later on, in the letters in February of the following
year, Goethe again alludes to the picture : ' The great
portrait of myself which Tischbein had taken in hand
begins already to stand out from the canvas. The
painter has employed a clever statuary to make him a
little model in clay, which is elegantly draped with the
mantle. With this he is working away diligently.' The
last fact is curious, as it is exactly the way Meissonier
worked a hundred years after. I went to his studio
shortly after his death, and saw all his little clay models
of cannons, figures, horses, roads, from which all his
highly finished pictures were painted. The Goethe por-

OCTOBER 79

trait has a distinct dash of affectation in it, and the
whole pose, excusable enough in Goethe, is of a man in
the prime of his life who felt himself to be famous and
knew himself to be handsome. To our ideas, the pic-
ture is singularly devoid of colour, almost monochrome ;
but it strikes one as very modern in treatment, consider-
ing its date, and for every reason it must always remain
one of the interesting portraits of the world. In the
early part of this century and during the Napoleonic
days, when the Rothschilds of Frankfort began to spread
themselves through Europe and establish their banking-
houses in so many capitals, the son who went to Naples
bought this great canvas of Tischbein's. In this way it
has ultimately found a most fitting home — not in the
small house which, Goethe truly said, would not admit
it, but on the walls of this museum in his native town.

The Staedel Institute has many artistically interest-
ing pictures, most instructive to the student of the old
masters, both German and Italian. For those who wish
to understand modern criticism and the altering of long-
accepted catalogues attributing pictures to wrong artists,
I can most strongly recommend 'Italian Painters,' by
Giovanni Morelli (John Murray) , translated into English
by Constance Jocelyn Ffoulkes. Giovanni Morelli lived
at Bergamo in Lombardy. He left as a legacy to his
native town a small, but very remarkable, collection of
pictures, the chief treasures of which are Dutch master-
pieces. I imagine the 'Italian Painters' is almost the
root of the kind of modern criticism which has torn
from us of the older generation many of the faiths of
our youth. For instance, the famous Guide's ' Cenci' of
the Barberini Palace for more than a century drew tears
of pity from the eyes of poets and their followers as
being a most tender representation of a famous criminal
painted in prison, who, but for this supposed portrait of

8o MORE POT-POURRI

her, would never have been known to posterity. As a
fact, she was executed six or seven years before Guido
arrived in Rome. Neither is the picture a Guido at all,
but a study by some inferior painter of an unknown
model. At least, this, I believe, is the last word on the
subject. The favourite portrait of Raphael by himself
in the Louvre, leaning on his hand, is not a portrait of
him, nor is the picture painted by him. The great Hol-
bein at Dresden is said now not to be the original, which
is at Darmstadt ; and so on . In this Frankfort gallery
there is an extraordinarily fine and interesting female
portrait, hitherto attributed to Sebastiano del Piombo,
but now supposed to be by Sodoma. It is one of the
gems of the collection.

Before leaving England last year (1897), I had been
immensely interested at hearing of the open-air treat-
ment for phthisis as practised in Germany, the parent
establishment of which is at Falkenstein, in the Taunus
Mountains, close to Cronberg, where I was staying. I
wished very much to visit this sanatorium myself, but
circumstances rendered it impossible.

A good account of it was published just after I came
home, in the ' Practitioner ' for November, by Dr. Karl
Hess, senior physician to the establishment.

It cannot fail to strike us as we walk or drive past
the Brompton hospital, with its airless situation and its
closed windows, how hopelessly different its conditions
and treatment must be from those recommended — and
apparently so successfully carried out — at Falkenstein.
In Germany twenty sister establishments have been
started, and the medical management is supposed to
be now so complete against infection that German
parents have no fear of sending delicate children to
these cures, at the age of sixteen or seventeen, to be
benefited by the outdoor treatment as a strengthener

OCTOBER 81

against the possibility of their catching tuberculosis.
At Falkenstein, the parent institution, much meat is
insisted on; but I am told that at Nordrach Dr. Walther
now gives very little meat, and sends away patients if
they take any stimulant at all. He does cram them, but
it is with enormous quantities of milk, cheese, butter,
brown bread, and other farinaceous foods.

When I came home from Germany last year I noted
three things which I hold to be of the utmost impor-
tance, and in which we seemed in England to be decid-
edly behind other nations. First, I wished to see estab-
lished public slaughterhouses, duly inspected, not only
in large towns, but in every village where beasts are
slaughtered. It seems to me absurd to expect that the
man who buys a beast, kills it himself, and counts on
selling the meat at a profit, should forego his gains
solely for the public good. Meat is constantly eaten
which is rejected by the Jewish priests, and I believe it
is a statistically established fact that Jews have a great
immunity from both consumption and cancer. It used
to be supposed that this was because they were of a dif-
ferent race from ourselves. I believe it is because they
are much cleaner feeders than we are.

Secondly, I would gladly have seen greater intelli-
gence and knowledge on the part of the public as re-
gards the danger to children and invalids who live
almost exclusively on milk of drinking it unsterilised
or unboiled, since one tuberculous cow infects the whole
supply, and this is not possible to detect by any analysis
of the milk.

Thirdly, I wished that the German rational outdoor
treatment of consumptive patients, when once they have
caught tuberculosis, or are so constituted that they are
likely to catch it, should be understood and practised in
England.

82 MORE POT-POURRI

The strides that have been made towards the accom-
plishment of these three wishes of mine during the last
year is simply astonishing. The newly formed National
Association for the Prevention of Tuberculosis, whose
office is in Hanover Square, has for its great object to
instruct people on the infectiousness of tuberculosis and
the best methods of arresting it. Everyone who read
the account of the first meeting of this society at Marl-
borough House must have been struck with the fact that
when the Queen's herd of cows were tested, thirty -six of
them were condemned to be slaughtered.

A century ago, when first invalids were sent to the
Riviera and Madeira, all the doctors distinctly taught
that the disease was hereditary, and not infectious. The
natives of these health resorts soon discovered, to their
cost, that the disease was infectious ; for it spread
amongst the population in the same way as it now has
at Davos, where tuberculosis was formerly unknown.
The superstition, as the doctors of the 'forties thought
it, of the peasants round Nice — who held that consump-
tion was really catching — made such an impression on
my mother, whose whole rsoul was bent on saving her
children from the disease of which their father died,
that she brought us up on the lines of that belief, and
kept us from every one whom she in any way suspected
of being consumptive, even when their complaint may
have been but a constitutional cough.

Perhaps this training is what has made me somewhat
sceptical about the medical science of any day being
absolutely conclusive. I sometimes think that the im-
plicit faith that people are apt to place in doctors may
be injurious to the community, and that experience and
quackery sometimes turn out to be scientifically truer
than the medical theory of the hour. Shocking as many
will think the suggestion, I believe this may eventually

OCTOBER 83

prove to be the case even with regard to vaccination as
a necessary preventive against small -pox epidemics,
the great decrease of which may have been effected by
many other circumstances. The itch, scurvy, and leprosy
have practically also disappeared in England with im-
proved food and cleanliness. Nowadays, why should not
a case of small- pox be stamped out as the plague was this
year in Vienna ? Before Jenner's great discovery, even
the most primitive methods of preventing infection were
unknown. It is only within the last twenty years that these
have been brought to anything like perfection, and only
in the last ten years with regard to crowded localities.

To return to tuberculosis. In spite of Tyndall's
wonderfully clear, instructive, and interesting letters to
the ' Times,' published more than twenty years ago, and
which explained most thoroughly the infectiousness of
consumption, the public have remained curiously ignorant
on the subject. As an illustration of this, a sad case
occurred this year not far from here. A signalman who
was mortally ill of consumption remained at his work, in
his signal-box on the line, as long as it was possible for
him to get there. When the day came that he had to
give in and remain at home to die, a young and healthy
man replaced him in the signal-box, which had in no
way been disinfected or whitewashed, and which, from its
construction, was a sun -trap and the best dust-and-
germ- producer that could be. A cattle-truck would
have been differently treated ! The young man caught
the disease, and died in a few months.

I find, in talking even to educated people, a consider-
able tone of resentment on this subject. ' What ! ' they
say, 'are our consumptives to be treated like lepers?'
The poetry that hung about consumption in the early
days of this sentimental century, its association with the
South, with Madeira's orange groves and the sunshine

84 MORE POT-POURRI

of the Mediterranean, is now not easy to eradicate. The
modern cure is stern, rough, and unattractive, and it is
difficult at first to believe it to be the best for the hard,
hacking cough and hectic flush of the patients.

The homeward journey from Germany was much
less pleasant than my journey out had been, in conse-
quence of the fatal date having come which decides
that German railway carriages shall be heated— or, as
we English think, over-heated. This causes considerable
suffering to those who stupidly, like myself, forget that
an almost summer dress is required, with plenty of
wraps to prevent any chill on leaving the carriage. We
passed Coblentz at early winter sunset -time, and I never
saw anything more beautiful than all the tones of blues
and pearly grays under a sky spread with wave upon
wave of bright pink clouds. Not Turner himself could
have come near to the delicate yet brilliant effect. Skies
are fleeting enough, and the waves of rosy clouds quickly
disappear, but the despairing swiftness of an express
train is the quickest of all ; and in a moment Coblentz,
with its towers, its fortress, and its beautiful sunlit
sky, was out of sight.

I do think that if we would enjoy the Rhine in its
beauty we must visit it in winter, when we see it as
Turner saw it. What a pleasure it is now to go to those
rooms on the ground floor of the National Gallery where
Turner's sketches are ! I went there again the other
day to see the Rhine of one's youth. What a king and
creator of Impressionist sketching was Turner in his
later manner ! He lifted the hilltops till they grew pink
in the setting sun, and he trailed the long reflections to
fathomless depths in the broad river. And was not the
fortress defiantly impregnable in those days, and so
rendered by him in those two wonderful pink and yellow
and blue Ehrenbreitstein sketches ? How quickly and

OCTOBER 85

easily all his effects and gradations are produced ! If
they were not consummate, we should now call them
cheap. I had not seen these rooms in the National
Gallery for some years. They are beautifully arranged
— so warm, so light, and, alas! so empty. At least,
when I was there I wandered alone. How true it is that
what we can have always we care for so little, and how
we toil as tourists in foreign towns!

It seems rather ridiculous to have brought back from
Germany a French poem. But I heard there, for the
first time, one of Tosti's earlier songs, the words of
which seemed to me sympathetic and full of charm.
They are written by a Comtesse de Castellane, and, as
they are very little known apart from the music, I quote
them here for the benefit of the non- singing world —
which, after all, is rather a large one:

VOUS ET MOI

Vos yeux sereins et purs ont voulu me sourire,
Votre main comme une aile a caresse" ma main,

Mais je ne sais trouver, he'las! rien a vous dire,
Car nous ne marchons pas dans le meme chemin.

Vous 6tes le soleil d'un beau jour qui commence,
Et moi la nuit profonde et 1'horizon couvert;

Vous etes fleur, 6toile, et joyeuse cadence,

Vous dtes le printemps, et moi je suis 1'hiver!

Vous buvez les rayons et respirez les roses,
Car vous etes 1'aurore, et moi la fin du jour;

II faut nous dire adieu sans en chercher les causes,
Car je suis le regret, et vous etes 1' amour.

There are few acts, in my opinion, so blamable and
so selfish as an old man marrying a young girl. He
understands life and she does not, and the responsibility
rests with him. Of course this does not apply to a
woman past thirty who wants a home.

NOVEMBER

Present of ' The Botanist ' — Echeveria and Euphorbia splendens —
Cowper on greenhouses — Cultivation of greenhouse plants —
Bookseller at Frankfort — Dr. Wallace on Lilies — Receipts —
Winter in the country — The sorting of old letters.

November 1st. — One of those most pleasant echoes of
my first book came to me to-day. I received a letter,
addressed to the care of my publisher, from a lady who
was so pleased with my commendation of her father's
work ('The Botanic Garden,' by B. Maund) that she
kindly asked to be allowed to send me, what I had long
wished to have, the five volumes of his second book,
' The Botanist ' — a gardening periodical which was
published only for five years, as the coloured illustra-
tions were too costly to be continued. The first number
was issued in January, 1825. It contains full -page
illustrations of stove, greenhouse, and new hardy plants
— new, that is, in 1825. I have had it bound, and it is
a great addition to my collection of flower -books. The
original drawings were chiefly made by Mrs. Withers,
who was the first flower -painter of that day. The title-
page bears the following inscription :

The Botanist : containing Accurately Coloured
Figures of Tender and Hardy Ornamental Plants,
with Descriptions Scientific and Popular, intended to
convey both Moral and Intellectual Gratification.' A
quotation is added from Sir J. E. Smith: 'The world
seems to have discovered that nothing about which
Infinite Wisdom has deigned to employ itself can, prop-
erly speaking, be unworthy of any of its creatures, how

(86).

NOVEMBER 87

lofty soever their pursuits and pretensions may be.;
The flowers are beautifully drawn and delicately col-
oured, one on a page — not on the same principle as
'The Botanic Garden.' But it is as full as that is of
interesting information, not the least, perhaps, being
the derivation of the names of plants, some of which we
use every day. For instance, ' Echeveria ' is derived
from M. Echever, a botanical painter.

Euphorbia splendens is an interesting and effective
stove -plant. It is a 'native of Madagascar, and the
name it bears in its own country is ' Soongo-Soongo.'
It is among the plants one need not fear to buy, as
cuttings strike easily under a hand-glass. I mention
it, as I bought it last year at a sale not knowing what
it was. Oxalis Bowiei I also have, and try to grow it
out of doors in a very sheltered place. Like most of the
finer Oxalises, it is a native of the Cape. I was not
here, as I have said, in the summer this year; but when
I returned, it looked very dried up and unsatisfactory.
This is what William Herbert, the author of 'Amaryl-
lidacea,' before mentioned, says of its cultivation: ' This
most beautiful and florid plant is hardy ' (where mine
came from it had been out of doors for years) ' and in
the open ground will flower in the autumn.' (I expect
a bell-glass would greatly help this.) ' But it blossoms
most profusely when kept in a pot under glass, espe-
cially if, after a short period of rest at midsummer, it is
placed in a stove or warm greenhouse for a very short
time to make it start freely. Its flowers expand in very
moderate temperature. Like all the Oxalises, the
flowers are very sensible to light, and only expand
thoroughly when the strong, clear sunshine falls upon
them.' These early- going -to -sleep plants are rather
trying, as they never look their best when one wants to
show them off in the afternoon.

88 MORE POT-POURRI

The stalks or canes of Michaelmas Daisies should be
cut down carefully, trimmed, and dried, as they make
excellent sticks for plants in pots or even out of doors,
and are well worth saving.

November 3rd. — A lady writes strongly recommending
a Tea Rose called ' Ma Capucine.' ' Such lovely red-scar-
let buds from June to December,' she says. This I have
now ordered. I have moved my white ' Lamarque Rose,'
but I cannot get it to do well here. The Dean of Roch-
ester wrote me a most kind letter reproaching me for
saying I could not grow Roses, and implying that the
fault is mine. This I know to be true, but the fact is I
am so fond of variety in flowers, as in all else, that I
grudge too much room in the garden being given to
Roses ; and the attention and hand-picking they require
in the spring, when I am very busy with other things,
cause them to be neglected.

Another correspondent from the north of London
wrote that I exaggerated the difficulty of growing Roses
near London. He says he has had good success with
his. But then he lives on heavy soil, and that makes an
extraordinary difference in their power of resisting their
enemies — smoke, blight, etc.

This year a Crimson Rambler that failed near a wall
(I believe they never do well on walls) has made pro-
digious growth out in the open. I have cut out the old
wood, spread out the long shoots, and tied them down to
canes on either side, so as to increase the flowering all
along the branches. Underneath is a large bed of ' Mrs.
Simpkin' Pinks, and I think the two together will be
pretty.

November 7th. — I am always being asked about green-
house plants, and how to get variety both for picking
and for ornamenting a small greenhouse next a room.
It has been rather the fashion of late to say : ' Oh ! I

NOVEMBER 89

don't care for greenhouse plants ; I only like hardy
things.' This surely is a mistake. Cowper, that now-
neglected poet, says :

Who loves a garden, loves a greenhouse too.

Unconscious of a less propitious clime,

There blooms exotic beauty, warm and snug,

While the winds whistle and the snows descend.

The spiry Myrtle, with unwithering leaf,

Shines there and nourishes. The Golden Boast

Of Portugal and Western India there,

The ruddier Orange and the paler Lime,

Peep through their polish 'd foliage at the storm,

And seem to smile at what they need not fear.

The Amomum there, with intermingling flowers

And Cherries, hangs her twigs. Geranium boasts

Her crimson honours, and the spangled Bean,

Ficoides, glitters bright the winter long.

All plants, of every leaf that can endure

The winter's frown if screen'd from its shrewd bite,

Live there and prosper. Those Ausonia claims,

Levantine regions these ; the Azores send

Their Jessamine, her Jessamine remote

Caffraria. Foreigners from many lands,

They form one social shade, as if convened

By magic summons of the Orphean lyre.

Yet just arrangement, rarely brought to pass

But by a master's hand, disposing well

The gay diversities of leaf and flower,

Must lend its aid to illustrate all their charms,

And dress the regular yet various scene.

Plant behind plant aspiring : in the van

The dwarfish ; in the rear retired, but still

Sublime above the rest, the statelier stand.

In spite of what I consider the excellent gardening
spirit in these lines, how curiously non-poetical they are
according to the ideas of our day ! In my edition of
Cowper there is a footnote to the word 'Ficoides,' ex-
plaining it as 'Ice -plant,' which is an annual Mesembri-
anthemum ; whereas he probably meant some of the

90 MORE POT-POURRI

perennial flowering Mesembrianthemums, which, I think,
are beautiful things in a winter greenhouse, in a pot,
and hanging from a shelf. All the same, I imagine it
would be possible to sow the Ice -plant so late that it
might go on growing through the winter in a pot, though
its beauty can never be so great as on a broiling hot
summer's day.

I agree with every word that Cowper says, and his
lines suggest what I want specially to urge on those who
pass the winter in the country. Greenhouses were new
in Cowper 's time, and the pleasure of them has probably
been wiped out — or, at any rate, greatly diminished — by
the way people who can afford such luxuries are now
always rushing away in search of sunshine in other
climes, and are content to come back in June and find
their flourishing herbaceous borders, that have been
asleep under manure all the winter, surpassing in luxu-
riance of colour and form the gardens of the South.
One of the least helpful volumes of the large edition of
Mrs. London's 'Lady's Flower Garden' is the one called
'Ornamental Greenhouse Plants' — so many things she
recommends to grow are now proved to be hardy, and so
many others that we now know to be well worth the
trouble of cultivation for flowering in the winter are
omitted altogether. I know no modern book that quite
tells one enough how to keep a small conservatory fur-
nished all the year round.

Greenhouse flowers can be most interesting and vari-
ous, and I propose each month through the winter to
name fresh things as they come on and are brought into
the small conservatory next my sitting-room. I am too
ignorant to speak of any plants except those I grow.
The conservatory faces east and south, so it gets what
sun there is to be had in winter. I removed the stages
that were there, except two shelves close to the glass on

NOVEMBER 91

the east side. I took up the tiles and dug a bed close to
the north wall, which is against the drawing-room chim-
ney, and another bed on the west side of the small
square. These beds make the difference between a green-
house and a conservatory. When I speak of a bed I
mean that, though the floor of the greenhouse is tiled,
the plants are planted in the ground. This is very es-
sential in any conservatory, whether large or small. On
the north side, facing south, is planted out what has now
grown into a huge plant of Henry Jacobi. It has been
there some years, and is cut down very severely about
this time every year. Next to it is a quaint plant, one
of the Platyceriums, growing on a piece of board hung
on the wall, which requires nothing but occasional
watering. Below that are two French flower- pots that
hang flat against the wall and are filled with Maidenhair.
A plant of the sweet yellow Jasmine and a plant of pale
Heliotrope, both in the ground, are all the wall will hold
on this side. In the middle of the other bed next the
west wall, and also planted out, are a large sweet-scented
double-white Datura ; a white Niphetos Rose, which
runs up a pole to the glass roof ; a common Passion
Flower, to make shade in summer ; and a blue Plum-
bago capense. By the side of the door, growing up a
wire, is a dark green Smilax, that has been there for
many years and gives no trouble. The other things are
in pots, and are constantly changed and moved. I grow
both Pancretiums and Crinums; th*ey are indeed worthy
of every attention, and ought to be in all carefully se-
lected collections. They are so sweet, so delicate, and
so lovely ! — all that we prize most in single flowers.
There are a great many kinds of both Pancretiums and
Crinums. (See Johnson's 'Gardener's Dictionary.')
Even the hardier Crinums in pots require heat at the
growing time, and they often have to be grown for sev-

92 MORE POT-POURRI

eral years after they are bought before they flower at all ;
but, once started, they seern to flower each year. I have
a Crinum Moorei out of doors which makes its leaves
every year, but has not yet flowered.

I try to arrange the plants in groups in this conser-
vatory. Whether there are ten plants of one kind, or
only two, they are placed together ; and if there are dif-
ferent plants more or less of one colour, they, too, are
massed together. I think this makes the most immense
difference in the pleasure to be got out of a greenhouse,
and increases the colour -value of everything grown in
it, as the power of one plant to kill or injure the colour
of another is far more felt in a greenhouse than even in
the open border. I have, now flowering, my usual num-
ber of the protected Chrysanthemums. They are less
good than last year, the wet June and dry August not
having suited them. Last year the hardy early outdoor
Chrysanthemums were very good indeed ; this year the
season has been even harder on them than on the pot-
plants. All the same, they should be very much grown
in all gardens. They transplant quite easily from the
reserve garden at any time from August onwards. I
have yellow, orange, pink, white, dark red, and a very
dark yellow, which seems to last the longest and be the
hardiest. Some few cottage gardens have better varie-
ties than I can boast. The great secret for the late-flow-
ering hardy Chrysanthemums is to get them against
walls, and, still better, under the protection of shrubs.
Many of the greenhouse Chrysanthemums will also
flower perfectly out of doors, if only planted late in the
summer under shrubs, as I have just said. In this ~yay
they get a natural protection on cold nights. The last
two years I have grown for the greenhouse, in pots, a
Michaelmas Daisy that is new to me, called Aster gran-
diflora. It has a stiff, pretty growth, and is quite hardy;

NOVEMBER 93

but it flowers so late that it does not come to perfection
out of doors. It looks very well under glass in front of
a group of white Chrysanthemums. The flowers are as
large as Aster amellus, and of the same colour, which is
so different in tone from that of any of the Chrysanthe-
mums. It reminds me a little of StoJcesia cyanea, which
I used to grow in the same way; only that did not stand
the moving and potting up nearly so well as this Aster
does. I dare say I did not manage it rightly.

November 8th. — There is a famous seller of old books
in Frankfort named Baer. He lives in the Rossmarkt,
and some of my best old flower -books I have had from
him. I brought home this time one of those books that
delight a collector's heart, a really very fine one. I
have been told by an artist who saw it here that it must
have cost more than 2,000/. to bring it out. The book
consists of two elephant folios bound in old stamped
white vellum, and bringing them back as a parcel was
not exactly easy. There is no letterpress at all in the
first volume. It has two handsome frontispieces in the
Dutch manner, with Flora and another goddess holding
a large straw bee -hive. In the middle is the title, writ-
ten in Latin and printed on what is supposed to
represent a sheet of parchment, hung from a classical
building with columns on each side. At the bottom is a
representation of the Garden of Eden, with trees and
various animals, all well drawn. Adam is walking with
the Almighty, who is represented by the figure of an old
man surrounded by what in early Italian art is called a
mandorla, or almond-shaped glory. Miss Hope Rea, in
' Tuscan Artists,' says of this almond-shaped glory :
'In Christian symbolism and art it is reserved for
Christ, and has a profound signification. Though called
a mandorla, or almond, it is really intended to represent
the form of a fish ; and this, from the days of the

94 MORE POT-POURRI

Church of the Catacombs, was the accepted symbol of
Christ, because the letters of the Greek ichthus = &sh,
give the initials for the Greek words, 'Jesus Christ, Son
of God, the Saviour.' Mrs. Jameson, in 'Sacred and
Legendary Art,' gives the Latin name, vesica piscis , for
the oblong glory surrounding the whole person. She
says that it is 'confined to figures of Christ and the
Virgin, or Saints who are in the act of ascending into
heaven.' It is, therefore, in ignorance that this German
of the early days of the seventeenth century surrounds
the Almighty with this almond-shaped glory instead of
a glory round the head. The book is called 'Hortus
Eystettensis,' and was brought out in 1613 by Basil
Besler, an apothecary. On each side of the columns are
two draped male figures, representing Solomon and
Cyrus. The whole page is coloured (highly rather than
beautifully) by hand ; and the large first volume must
contain over three hundred pages, with designs of all
kinds of flowers and fruit beautifully drawn and
coloured. I believe the book with only outline represen-
tations of the flowers is not very uncommon, but coloured
copies are exceedingly rare. In fact, Herr Baer told
me he had never seen another. Whether the colouring
dates from the time of printing or not it is difficult to
say. The paper is beautiful, the whole in excellent
condition, and it is a treasure, from a collector's point of
view. Binders were careless in those days, as one sheet
is bound upside down. The second volume is not quite
so thick, but the plates are of even greater beauty. It
contains a curious copyright, given by Louis XIII.,
King of France and Navarre. The date of the book
being 1613, the young king was only twelve years old
when he granted this protection to his good servant,
Basil Besler, who had been put to such great expense
in producing his book.

NOVEMBER 95

November 10th. — I find several of the Japanese
Maples so well worth growing and quite hardy here.
They make very little growth, and want dry, sunny,
protected places, where they suffer sometimes from
drought, but recover by the following year, and are
delightful plants. Golden Privet is a very pretty -
growing plant when young, out of doors or in pots.
It has been much used of late in London in window-
boxes. I have never tried to see if it would keep its
leaves in a room.

November 13th. — I gathered to-day a small but
bright, well -grown Oriental Poppy; and several of the
Delphiniums, cut down in summer, have flowered beau-
tifully a second time. One cannot provide for or be
sure of these out -of -season garden surprises ; but when
they come by chance — some one year, some another —
they are very delightful, interesting, and precious.
They are like an unexpected piece of good fortune, or
the return of a long- absent friend, who, one thought,
had quite forgotten one, and who returns as on the day
he left — as friendly, as kind, and as confidential. Such
surprises push back for a moment the dial of the clock
— a thing not to be despised even as a passing illusion,
whether in the late autumn of a garden or of life.

November 18th. — Two days later than I have ever
before remained down here ! It is such beautiful
weather. In these mild days the singing of birds comes
slightly as a surprise, so different from the silence of
August and September. How little one realizes during
this silence that the birds, thrushes especially, begin to
sing now, in November, and keep on all through the
winter, in mild weather, till the end of June. The
robin did not like the dry season ; he began to sing so
late this season.

November 20th. — Most people who have gardens wish

96 MORE POT-POURRI

to grow Lilies, and yet very few are really successful
with them. By far the finest I have seen in this part of
the world were grown in an Azalea bed, in more than
half shade, and copiously hosed all through the hot, dry
weather. They were really beautiful. A book called
'Notes on Lilies and their Culture,' by Dr. Wallace, of
Colchester, has only lately come to my knowledge, and I
am quite sure anyone who wishes to grow Lilies will not
get on well without it. It is an admirable book ; in
fact, its only fault is that it is so comprehensive one
feels, as with most of the specialist gardening books,
that the rest of one's life must be spent in trying to
understand that one plant. I think there is a good deal
to be said for this kind of gardening. As the amateur
advances in knowledge, he naturally wishes to grow with
extra perfection some plants with which everybody
cannot succeed. And I think, in the case of small
gardens near towns, that it would be a real interest for
a man to grow, let us say, Lilies from Dr. Wallace's
book, or Irises by the advice of Professor Foster, or
Cactuses according to Mr. Watson. This has been done
over and over again in the case of Eoses ; but rarely, in
my experience, with other plants.

November 27th.— My principal flower-table in sum-
mer is in a cool hall away from the sun. In winter,
now that I live here all the year round, I have it in the
sitting-room, close to a large south window. The sun
in summer quickly kills flowers that are cut and in
water, but in winter this is not so. On the contrary, it
seems to cheer them up and make them open out and
look happy. I will describe this flower -table as it stands
before me. At the back, in a pot, is a baby Araucaria
(Puzzle -monkey). These trees, so ugly when growing
on a lawn, are charming in the baby stage. They can
be grown from seed, and they do very well in a room.

NOVEMBER 97

This little tree is raised on a Japanese stand. Beside it
is a pot containing a small orchid, Odontoglossum pic-
turatum, one mass of flowers like yellow Violets.
Various Cypripediums are in front in a glass, and
Imantophyllnms that have stood out all the summer
and thrown up a few late autumn flowers ; they are
always most effective picked. There are also pieces cut
from a bright yellow Coronilla flowering out of doors
against a greenhouse wall, a bunch of white Paris
Daisies that were left out to be killed by the frost and
are still flourishing, and a bunch of the black berries of
the common Privet, which contrast well with a few bright
orange Gazanias, also left out to perish early in the year
from cold and dryness, but of which we always take
cuttings, as it has this great merit of late flowering out
of doors. Finally, there is a precious bunch of Neapoli-
tan Violets. For the first hour or two after they are
picked I always put a small bell-glass over them, as the
warm moisture from condensation under the glass very
much increases their sweetness.

I do not find it recommended in any of the modern
gardening books that I have, but I am sure, if you want
your Lilacs to flower well and never assume that weedy,
choked appearance that they generally have in gardens,
it is most important to remove, every winter, the
numerous suckers that surround Lilac bushes. When
this is done, it is as well to introduce a little manure
round the roots.

RECEIPTS

An excellent winter salad is made by mashing pota-
toes as if for a purte, and beating them up with a little
lukewarm weak stock or warm water instead of milk,
and no butter. Then dress them with a little chopped
chive, oil and vinegar, pepper and salt. This is good

98 MORE POT-POURRI

with braised meats or boiled salt beef, and can be end-
lessly improved and varied by covering it up, after it
is dressed, with chopped hard-boiled eggs, beetroot,
cucumbers bottled in vinegar, anchovies, etc., etc. In
fact, with these kinds of salads one can give hardly any
rule, as imagination and experiments are everything.
The ordinary red cabbage makes a very good salad. It
must be cut into very fine shreds, then scalded by pour-
ing a large kettle of boiling water over it. When cool,
but not cold, it should be dressed with oil and vinegar,
like ordinary salad, covered up, and allowed to stand for
two or three hours.

Pheasant stuffed with Woodcocks.— The French
say : * To the uninitiated this bird is as a sealed book ;
eaten after it has been killed but three days, it is insipid
and bad — neither so delicate as a pullet, nor so odor-
iferous as quail. Cooked at the right moment, the flesh
is tender and the flavour sublime, partaking equally of
the qualities of poultry and game. The moment so
necessary to be known and seized on is when decompo-
sition is about to take place. A trifling odour and a
change in the colour of the breast are manifested, and
great care must be taken not to pluck the bird till it is
to be larded and cooked, as the contact of the air will
completely neutralise the aroma, consisting of a subtle
oil, to which hydrogen is fatal. The bird being larded,
the first thing to do is to stuff it, which is effected in the
following manner : Provide two woodcocks, bone and
divide them into two portions, the "one being the flesh,
and the other trail, brains, and livers. You then take
the flesh and make a forcemeat by chopping it up with
some beef -marrow cooked by steam, a little rasped
bacon, pepper, salt, fine herbs, and so much of the best
truffles as will, with the above, quite fill the interior of
the pheasant. You must take care to secure this force-

NOVEMBER 99

meat in such a manner that it shall not escape, which is
sometimes sufficiently difficult if the bird is in an
advanced state ; however, it is possible to do so in
diverse ways, one of which is by fitting a crust of bread
and attaching it with a bit of ribbon. Take a slice of
bread one -third of an inch thick and two inches wider
on each side than the bird when laid on it. Then take
the livers, brains, and the trail of the woodcocks ;
pound them up with two large truffles, an anchovy, a
little rasped bacon, and as much of the finest fresh
butter as may seem necessary. Spread, then, this paste
on the toast equally, and let the pheasant, prepared as
above, be roasted over it in such a manner as that the
toast may be saturated with the juices that drop during
the operation of roasting. When that is done, serve the
pheasant gracefully laid on its bed (the toast) . Garnish
with Seville orange, and be tranquil as to the result.'
This extract from ' Les Classiques de la Table ' (p. 129)
I have taken from ' The Gentlewoman.' The gourmets
must make haste and try this dish, for fear the wood-
cocks, which are getting very scarce, should disappear
altogether. It is rather a mystery why they are
becoming so rare in England, for they are birds that
migrate. It has been suggested as as explanation that
sport is now so cosmopolitan, and breech -loading
weapons have so favourably handicapped the modern
gunner, that the woodcock is being gradually eliminated.
Poor little, clever, swift -flying thing, he is safe no-
where !

Mince-meat for Christmas should be made about
the 20th of this month. I think this old Suffolk receipt
is better than the one in ' Dainty Dishes' or in Mrs.
Roundell' s 'Practical Cookery.' The following direc-
tions are for a large quantity, but, of course, the
proportions can be greatly reduced : Two pounds of

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beef suet finely chopped, two pounds of raisins stoned
and chopped, two pounds of currants washed and
picked, two pounds of apples chopped fine, one pound
and a half of raw beef scraped and chopped fine (every
little bit of gristle having first been removed), one
pound of finely preserved ginger, six lemons (juice and
peel), twelve oranges (only the juice), a little salt, one
pound and a half of sugar, a little spice. Mix well with
brandy and sherry to taste. Keep in stone jars in a
cool place.

German Way of Warming- Up Potatoes.— Boil
them, let them get cold, cut them in thin slices into a
fireproof dish, add a little butter and milk, grate some
Parmesan cheese on the top, and bake in the oven.

Boiled Beef. — Take six to eight pounds of good fat
top- side or silver-side, beat it very hard on all sides
with a heavy wooden oak -log, to break the fibre. Put
it into a deep earthenware pot or copper stewpan, with
about five to five and a half quarts of cold water, adding
all its bones and all the parings and bones you may have
over from the joints, chickens, etc., of previous days.
Let it come gently to the boil, remove all the rising
scum, then add two leeks, two carrots, half a celeriac,
one turnip, and several sprigs of parsley and chervil.
Put the lid on so that a small slit remains open. Place
it by the side of the fire, so that it should not get off the
boil, and yet only boil quite gently. Leave to boil for
three and a half to four hours from its first boil. Serve
with a garnish of the vegetables cooked in the broth
and little Jiors-dJ -wuvre of salted cucumbers, horse-
radish grated finely and dressed with oil and vinegar,
beetroot salad, cress salad, celeriac salad — in fact, end-
less variations. It is very good with a plain tomato
sauce (French system).

Minced Collops. — Pass as much raw lean gravy beef

NOVEMBER 101

as you require two or three times through a mincing
machine. Fry it in about two ounces of butter for a few
minutes. Add pepper, salt, a little flour, and gravy or
water. Let this simmer for about twenty minutes,
keeping it well stirred to prevent it getting lumpy. A
little minced onion may be fried with the butter, and is
a great improvement. This receipt is very useful in
wild countries where the meat is hard and bad, and
where other food is deficient.

How to Dress Cod. — Take some slices of a small
cod and bake them in the oven in a little butter, with a
squeeze of lemon -juice, exactly as you would do salmon.
Serve with Tartare Sauce, as in * Dainty Dishes' ; only,
instead of putting it in a boat, which means a wastefully
large quantity, serve it in a little flat dish with a small
spoon. Brown bread and butter should also be handed
with it.

November 21st. — This is the first time in my life that
the short days have drawn in shorter and shorter and
that I have found myself alone, having to make up my
mind that being alone is my future, that my time is at
my own disposal, and that I am to live so always, except
for occasional visitors, who will grow fewer as time
goes on.

It is not sad to turn the face towards home,

Even though it shows the journey nearly done ;
It is not sad to mark the westering sun,

Even though we know the night doth come.

I do not dread loneliness in itself ; but those who live
with one, if they are kind and just, do take their share
of the burden of life, and it is hard to have no one to
whom one can go with those numberless little things
which are often big things in life's routine, and that one
hides away from those who come in from the outside
world as guests, be they ever so near and dear. It is

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best to keep oneself continually occupied, and one
realises that though the end cannot be so very far off,
yet the natural love of life is very strong indeed, and an
immense help. In a little volume of poems called
'lonica,' very well known to a few, but which I believe
has not spread to a large public, there are two poems
which I think strike singularly sympathetic notes. The
four lines of ' Remember, ' do they not come home to one
with all the tenderness of a message?

, You come not, as aforetime, to the headstone every day,
And I, who died, I do not chide because, my friend, you play ;
Only, in playing, think of him who once was kind and dear,
And, if you see a beauteous thing, just say/ He is not here.'

I reverse the position of these poems in the volume,
this short one being at the very end, and the following
almost in the beginning. I wonder if those who don't
know them will like them as much as I do.

You promise heavens free from strife,

Pure truth, and perfect change of will ;
But sweet, sweet is this human life —
So sweet I fain would breathe it still ;
Your chilly stars I can forego ;
This warm, kind world is all I know.

You say there is no substance here,

One great reality above ;
Back from that void I shrink in fear,
And, child-like, hide myself in love;
Show me what angels feel. Till then
I cling, a mere weak man, to men.

You bid me lift my mean desires

From faltering lips and fitful veins,
To sexless souls, ideal quires,
Unwearied voices, wordless strains ;
My mind with fonder welcome owns
One dear dead friend's remembered tones.

NOVEMBER 103

Forsooth, the present we must give
To that which cannot pass away ;
All beauteous things for which we live
By laws of time and space decay.
But oh, the very reason why
I clasp them is because they die.

Great grief, like great joy, has a right to be selfish —
for a time, at any rate. Everyone recognizes this, and,
in fact, wishes to minister to it so long as the selfishness
does not extend, as it -were, to the grief itself or to a
feeling of rebellion against the inevitable, which tends to
hardness and paralyses the sympathy of friends and
relations. 'To the old sorrow is sorrow, to the young it
is despair.' We must not forget this. The highest ideal
of how to receive grief with dignity is admirably
expressed in this sonnet by Mr. Aubrey de Vere, though
the moral reaches almost unattainable heights :

Count each affliction, whether light or grave,
God's messenger sent down to thee; do thou
With courtesy receive him ; rise and bow

And, ere his footsteps cross thy threshold, crave

Permission first his heavenly feet to lave.
Then lay before him all thou hast, allow
No cloud of passion to usurp thy brow

Or mar thy hospitality ; no wave
Of mortal tumult to obliterate

The soul's marmoreal calmness. Grief should be,
Like joy, majestic, equable, sedate,

Conforming, cleansing, raising, making free,
Strong to control small troubles, to command
Great thoughts, grave thoughts, thoughts lasting to the end.

November 30th. — A long, gloomy, lonely day. I
thought this evening I would look through a large box I
have upstairs full of old letters and papers left to me,
and which I have always intended to sort at my leisure.
They have been there for years, but I have never had

io4 MORE POT-POURRI

time, in the hurry and business of life, even to glance
through them. It is an employment that requires rather
a peculiar state of mind, a quiet eddy away from the too
rapid swirl of ordinary life. Such an occupation must
recall to the memory of anyone who has ever read it
Professor Max Miiller's preface to his charming little
story called 'German Love,' which was published as long
ago as 1877. The little book treats of love — the eternal
familiar subject — with that touch of genius that makes
originality, and the preface fits so curiously with my
thoughts to-night that I think I must quote it :

' Who has not, once in his life, sat down at a desk
where shortly before another sat who now rests in the
grave ? Who has not had to open the locks which for
long years hid the most sacred secrets of a heart that
now lies hidden in the holy calm of the churchyard?
Here are the letters which were so loved by him whom
we all loved so well; here are pictures and ribbons, and
books with marks on every page. Who can now read
and decipher them ? Who can gather together the faded
and broken leaves of this rose, and endow them once
more with living fragrance ? The flames which among
the Greeks received the body of the departed for fiery
destruction — the flames into which the ancients cast
everything that had been most dear to the living — are
still the safest resting-places for such relics. With
trembling hesitation, the bereaved friend reads the pages
which no eye had ever seen, save the one now closed for
ever ; and when he has satisfied himself by a rapid
glance that these pages and letters contain nothing
which the world calls important, he throws them hastily
on the glowing coals; they flame up, and are gone.

'From such flames the following pages were saved.
They were intended at first for the friends only of the
lost one ; but as they have found friends amongst

NOVEMBER 105

strangers they may, since so it is to be, wander forth
again into the wide world.'

I began my task, turned over the old, mouldy papers
of long, long ago, and came across a bundle of the early
love-letters of my father and mother. So long as I live
I cannot allow them to be consigned to the flames, as
Professor Max Miiller recommends. They are so simple,
so touching and interesting in their old-world language,
that my first impulse was to string them together anony-
mously, adding the little tale of the love affair as per-
haps no one but I could do. But even without names
this might possibly have shocked the taste of people who
are sensitive on the subject of letters. I am not one of
those who object to the publishing of love-letters, given
sufficient time for personal knowledge and recollection
of the writers to have crumbled away. Voltaire said:
' On doit des regards aux vivants: on ne doit aux morts
que la veYiteV Had I myself written beautiful love-
letters in my youth, it would be a pride and joy to me
to think that generations unborn should appreciate and
enjoy the depths of my devotion, and forgive my weak-
nesses for the one great reason which will endure for
ever, 'because she loved much.' A little boy asked:
' Why is everyone called ' ' poor ' ' and ' ' good ' ' when
they are put into a box in the ground? ; I say: What
is it all the world forgives in the future, though at
the time society must defend itself by hard judgments
and stern morality ? What we all think vile and odious,
and what shocks our best sensibility, though it is inevi-
table, is the publication of the most commonplace love-
letters in the police or divorce courts. But does not
love, above everything that we share with our common
humanity, belong to all ? Is it not the most brilliant,
glorious possession we have ? Are we not really proud
of it even when it is misdirected ? Is not the perusal of

106 MORE POT-POURRI

unselfish, passionate, devoted letters — such as, for in-
stance, Mary Wollstonecraft's letters to Imlay (a per-
fectly unworthy object) — a better lesson to women than
all the articles, all the lectures, and all the sermons ever
preached? And why should we not, each of us, gain
strength through the publication of letters which show
the weakness of love in gifted beings like Keats and
Shelley? I cannot see any objection, and with pride
and joy would I have given, to those who cared to read
it, this interesting little bundle of papers, yellowed by
time, and written Toy my parents in the sunshine of their
youth, portraying that nothing really came between the
two but that old struggle — difference of opinion on relig-
ious subjects — and also showing the confident hope on
both sides that love ought to conquer.

Time crystallises, to my mind, such material into bi-
ography ; and the more absolutely true biography is, the
more interesting it becomes to the public. I have noted
down from some book — perhaps Symonds' Life — that 'the
first cannon in the art of unsophisticated letter -writing
is that, just as a speech is intended for hearers rather
than for readers, so is a letter meant for the eye of a
friend and not for the world. The very essence of good
letter -writing is, in truth, the deliberate exclusion of
outsiders, and the full surrender of the writer to the
spirit of egotism — amicable, free, light-handed, unpre-
tending, harmless, but still egotism. The best letters
are always improvisations, directly or indirectly, about
yourself and your correspondent.' Letters of this kind
are, in my opinion, the very ones most worth giving to
the public. The man of the world says : ' Burn all let-
ters, and only write insignificant notes with little mean-
ing in them, so that there may be nothing for others to
keep.' Goethe says : 'Letters are among the most sig-
nificant memorials a man can leave behind him.' This

NOVEMBER 107

seems to me true of private individuals, as well as of
those who have played a notable or distinguished part
on life's stage. But this is not the general opinion — to
which I, being only a prudent old woman, am content to
bow — and once more return to the box this touching,
interesting, and characteristic love-story of my father
and mother. I find, however, one letter written by my
father, and dated 1834, which is so impersonal and so
different from the ordinary love-letter to a young girl
that I think it can appear an indiscretion to no one that
I should publish it.

They met for the first time, by chance, on a summer's
afternoon for a little over an hour, and so completely
was it love at first sight on his side that he told my
mother afterwards he would gladly have married her
there and then had it been possible. She belonged to
a Tory family, so bigoted and narrow in their ideas that
they could hardly find a parallel in our day ; and on to
this training, with her hatred for worldliness and with
all the enthusiasm of her youthful aspirations, she had
grafted an almost Methodistical view of the duties of a
Christian. His views, on the other hand, were on all
points those of an advanced Liberal of the early days of
John Stuart Mill. Circumstances kept them apart for
four years, and at the end of three, after an accidental
meeting, he wrote her the following letter. With all
its humility, one can easily see that his object was the
enlightenment of a mind which had been narrowed by

its training :

1 Sunday night, July, 1834.

' Pray do not think I mean to force another letter
upon you. Your word is law to me, and I feel too deeply
obliged to you for all you have so kindly and generously
risked, in order to afford me the gratification of hearing
from you, to think of going myself or endeavouring to

io8 MORE POT-POURRI

force you one step beyond what you think right and
proper in this respect. I only wish to say one word
upon the two or three books I am venturing to send
you. I was delighted with your intention of continuing
German, because I am convinced that you will derive
great pleasure and benefit from your study of it. It is
a language which, from its power of expressing abstract
ideas, to say nothing of its structure and the facility
which exists in it of forming endless combinations of
words, is of a much higher order than any other
European language. It approaches nearest to the
Greek, and is no bad substitute to those who have never
had an opportunity of studying that language. No
foreigner can learn it without acquiring many new ideas
and rendering clearer some which he possessed before.
There is much, too, in the mind of the Germans as
reflected in their literature, the high tone of sentiment
in their moral writings, and the constant reference to
the ideal in their philosophy, which could not fail to be
interesting and attractive to you. Unfortunately, I do
not know how far you are advanced in your study of the
language, but I think I remember your telling me that
you had but just begun it. I have therefore sent you
" Klauer's Manual," the best book for self -tuition
which has been published, and I have marked in the
Index a few of the selections which are perhaps the
easiest to begin with. There is this advantage in the
book, that should you be so far advanced as not to need
the interlinear translation, the selections which are
given without it contain some admirable passages from
the best authors. Should you be but just beginning, I
should advise you to learn by heart only the articles,
ye five personal pronouns, and ye three auxiliary
verbs : and then, looking over the conjugation of the
regular verb, proceed at once to read the pieces in the

NOVEMBER 109

1st vol. in the order in which they are marked, using
the 2nd vol. (in which they are translated) as the key.
You will find the numbers of the pieces in the 2nd vol.
corresponding with those in the 1st. I have also sent
you a little volume of Schiller's poems, with a few
which I like marked. I should advise you, if any took
your fancy, to learn them by heart ; it is an agreeable
way of getting into one's mind a great fund of words to
be serviceable on all occasions. I had some difficulty in
getting you the " Morgen und Abendopf er, " but I was
anxious that you should have these little poems. They
are written by a German clergyman. The poetry is
very pretty and simple, and I like them for the cheerful
view which they take of religion. I have also ventured
to send you a little book of selections from different
authors, principally for the sake of those which have
been made from the works of four men whose writings
I have often perused with almost unmixed satisfaction.
I mean Jeremy Taylor, South, Bacon, and Milton. I send
them to you, not only as samples which will, I think,
please you, but in the hope that they will induce you to
look further into the works from which they are taken.
I had inserted some loose pages containing parallel
passages and observations upon the text, but think,
upon the whole, it would be to expose you to observa-
tion were I to send the book with them in and anybody
but yourself happened to look into it. I only send you
with it some verses of Southey's which struck me as
very pretty, and which I have but lately met with. You
can take them out. Taylor is a writer of the greatest
eloquence and the most exuberant imagination I am
acquainted with in any language. He had at the same
time an humble mind, and was thoroughly imbued with
a true spirit of Christian charity. South is distinguished
for y* vigour and nervous energy of his style and

no MORE POT-POURRI

thoughts. He had a thoroughly strong mind — too
confident, however, and uncompromising to admit of his
being really tolerant of the opinions of others. His
conception of the state of man before the Fall, though
it savours of course of ye ideal, is a very remarkable
performance. Bacon had a practical mind, and no man
perhaps ever so thoroughly mastered the subject of
human nature as he did. If you can get his Essays,
which are sold almost everywhere, pray read them — or
rather, I should say, study them, for they are models of
conciseness. Every sentence admits of development.
They force one to think for oneself, which is the best
service an author can render one. Justice has not been
done to Milton's prose works in this little book, but, as
they are mostly confined to political subjects, they
might not perhaps interest you so much. Milton's mind
was not wholly free from bigotry. But I love him for
his hatred of tyranny and persecution under every shape,
for his unquenchable ardour for liberty, and his hearty
and fearless advocacy of the enlightenment of mankind.
Among his poetical works do you know the "Comus"
well ? There are parts of it which, I think, he never
surpassed. I am sure you must like it. His " Paradise
Lost" is indeed a study — a noble and improving one
for all who can comprehend his sublime conceptions and
the beautiful and powerful language in which he has
clothed them. But I must think he was unfortunate in
his subject. A lover of pure religion can hardly fail to
think that the effect of parts is to degrade and humanise
the Divinity. I can hardly conceive that the 3rd Book,
in which he propounds the mystery of the Redemption
and details its origin, should not be in some degree
shocking to a true Christian. The poetry of it is cer-
tainly most sublime, but there is, on the whole, a famil-
iarity in the scene described which makes me think it

NOVEMBER in

would have found a titter place in the writings of a hea-
then. I had also got you one or two more books, but I
am afraid to send them, lest you should think I presume
too much upon y° permission you gave me. One of them
was an Essay upon the nature and true value of military
glory, aiid another upon the education of the poor as
the best kind of charity we can do them. Depend upon
it, it is so ; and all indiscriminate relief, given as it
generally is for the selfish purpose of gratifying our own
benevolence, partakes not of the real nature of charity,
which regards the good of the object ; and, while it
tends to diminish their own exertions in the present,
prevents them from acquiring those habits of providence
and self-dependence which, in the long run, constitute
their only chance of respectability and happiness. There
is no fear the stream of charity will want channels in
which to flow, and I also do not believe that its sources
are the least likely to be dried up. There are more
funds required for education and ye support of some
kinds of hospitals than will, I fear, ever be supplied.
You would find Mrs. Marcet's "Conversations on Polit-
ical Economy" very useful, and there are some good
reasons given in the beginning why ladies should be
acquainted with the principles of the science. Let me
recommend to you, as connected with your German
reading, Madame de Stael's work on Germany. I have
derived great pleasure from reading it. And though she
occasionally goes out of her depth, and her facts are
not always correct, there is a good deal still of profound
reflection and much valuable information in the work.
I will mention to you a few others of the books which I
have most admired. I am not, however, a miscellaneous
reader ; I wish I could be ; but I have not a retentive
memory, and as reading is to me valuable only in pro-
portion as I retain what I read, I confine my studies

ii2 MORE POT-POURRI

as much as possible to those works which I can bear to
read over and over again. Of such character is Words-
worth's poetry, and I should be glad if no day elapsed
without my reading some portion of it. If you have
his works with you, pray read the "Ruth," the
"Laodamia," the "Ode to Duty," the "Lines Written
Near Tintern Abbey " (I know nothing more beautiful
than this), the "Cumberland Beggar," and a little
poem — I think he calls it the "Yew Tree" or the
"Yew Tree Seat" (for I have not the book with me)—
in which there are some lines beginning, "The man
whose eye is ever on himself doth look on one the least
of Nature's works," etc. I like Coleridge's poetry, but
less well. Of all his long pieces I like his translation of
Schiller's Wallenstein the best. It is admirable as a
poem, while it is perfect as a translation. His "Ancient
Mariner" and his "Love" or "Genevieve" are very
beautiful. I hope you will be able to read my friend's
play, which my sister told you of.1 I longed to send it
to you. It is a work of genius, and at the same time of
great labour. He is a man of humble birth, but of an
exalted mind ; and that, I am sure, you will think better
than being "some tenth transmitter of a foolish
face"! In religious works, I have best liked Butler's
"Analogy" and "Sermons," Taylor's and South's ser-
mons, Paley's "Evidences," all Whateley's works —
especially his "Romish Errors" and the "Peculiarities
of Christianity" — and Davison on prophecy. This is a
work which will survive the present day. Its author is
just dead, prematurely. He was a man of great powers
of mind, but his health prevented him from sustaining
any great intellectual labour. Sumner's" Records of the
Creation" is a very instructive work, as well as a most
interesting one. I should like to recommend to you

1 PhiUp van Artevelde.

NOVEMBER 113

also Southey's "Life of Wesley." It is not very easy
to get it, but I am sure it would well repay you for
reading. Among lighter books, I will mention Scott's
"Lives of the Novelists." It is not only a very
interesting book, but there is a great deal of sound
criticism in it — particularly, for instance, in his lives of
Richardson and Fielding — and it would be well if the
generality of novel -readers had some fixed and firm
certain principles of taste by which to judge of the
merits of what they read. I was much struck, I assure
you, with your remarks upon the "Admiral's Daughter"
to my sister. The criticism seemed to me as just as it
was well expressed. What I had objected to in the
work was the intention of placing the man of intellect
and of cultivation in unfavourable contrast with the
man of impulse and feeling. You will say that religion
made the difference ; but I am not aware that anything
which is good in the good man is supposed to arise from
the presence of religion. But I will not write you a
letter, though I feel as if I could go on for ever. No.
I fear, for so long as you desire it, all direct communica-
tion must cease between us. I doubt not you are right.
Heaven grant that it may be renewed at no distant
time and under happy circumstances ! May God for
ever bless and protect you ! '

In 1835 they were married, and had eight short years
of great happiness. This was constantly described to
me in a way to make a deep impression on a child's
mind, and to account for a sentimental vein in me that
was perhaps beyond what was usual even in the days
when a very different tone was prevalent among girls
than at present. Though my recollection of my father
was of the faintest, my hero-worship for him amounted
almost to idolatry all through my childhood. I so ven-

1 14 MORE POT-POURRI

erated the few of his written sayings that my mother
brought to my notice that I think they powerfully affected
my character. I confess it gave me great pleasure when,
a few years ago, I saw two references to him in a volume
of Lady Carlisle's letters written from Paris in 1832.
The allusion was in a letter dated 'Paris, September 1st,
1832,' and was as follows: 'Edward Villiers is here,
only for one day. He is the image of George' (his
eldest brother), 'only handsomer and graver. I think
him uncommonly pleasing.' The other notice was on
November 5th, when the old lady says: ' Edward Villiers
is my love. He is delightful, excellent, and interesting.
A Villiers without any of the shades.' He died of con-
sumption at Nice in October, 1843. In Charles Gre-
ville's ' Memoirs' is the obituary notice which he wrote
for the ' Times' of November 7th. It has a certain
literary interest, as being so much more personal in
tone and more deliberately the act of a friend than is
usual in notices of the same kind to-day :

' Last night came intelligence from Nice that Edward
Villiers was dead. He went there in a hopeless state,
was worse after his arrival ; then an abscess broke in
his lungs, which gave a momentary gleam of hope, but
he expired very soon after. I had a very great regard
for him, and he deserved it. He was a man little
known to the world in general — shy, reserved to
strangers, cold and rather austere in his manners, and,
being very short-sighted, made people think he meant
to slight them when he had no such intention. He was
not fitted to bustle into public notice, and such ambi-
tion as he had was not of the noisy and ostentatious
kind. But no man was more beloved by his family and
friends, and none could be more agreeable in any
society when he was completely at his ease. He was
most warm-hearted and affectionate, sincere, obliging,

NOVEMBER 115

disinterested, unselfish, and of unscrupulous integrity ;
by which I mean integrity in the largest sense, not
merely that which shrinks from doing a dishonourable
or questionable action, but which habitually refers to
conscientious principles in every transaction of life. He
viewed things with the eye of a philosopher, and aimed
at establishing a perfect consistency between his theory
and his practice. He had a remarkably acute and
searching intellect, with habits of patient investigation
and mature deliberation ; his soul was animated by
ardent aspirations after the improvement and the hap-
piness of mankind, and he abhorred injustice and
oppression, in all their shapes and disguises, with an
honest intensity which produced something of a morbid
sentiment in his mind and sometimes betrayed him into
mistaken impressions and erroneous conclusions.

' The expansive benevolence of his moral sentiments
powerfully influenced his political opinions, and his deep
sympathy with the poor not only rendered him inexor-
ably severe to the vices of the rich, but made him regard
with aversion and distrust the aristocratic elements of
our institutions, and rendered him an ardent promoter
of the most extensive schemes of progressive reform.
But, while he clung with inflexible constancy to his own
opinions, no man was more tolerant of the opinions of
others. In conversation he was animated, brilliant,
amusing, and profound, bringing sincerity, single-mind-
edness, and knowledge to bear upon every discussion.
His life, though short, uneventful, and retired, was
passed in the contemplation of subjects of interest and
worthiest to occupy the thoughts of a good and wise
man ; and the few intimacies he cultivated were with
congenial minds, estimable for their moral excellence or
distinguished by their intellectual qualities and attain-
ments. The world at large will never know what vir-

n6 MORE POT-POURRI

tues and talents have been prematurely snatched away
from it, for those only who have seen Edward Villiers
in the unrestraint and unreserve of domestic familiarity
can appreciate the charm of his disposition and the
vigour of his understanding. No stranger would have
divined that under that cold and grave exterior there lay
concealed an exquisite sensibility, the most ardent affec-
tions, and a mind fertile in every good and noble qual-
ity. To the relations and friends, who were devotedly
attached to him, the loss is irreparable, and will long be
deplored, and the only consolation which offers itself is
to be found in the circumstances of his end. He was
surrounded by kind and affectionate friends, and expired
in the arms of his wife, whose conduct he himself de-
scribed to have been that of a heroine as well as an
angel. He was in possession of all his faculties, and
was free from bodily pain. He died with the cheerful-
ness of a philosopher and the resignation of a Christian
— happy, devout and hopeful, and joyfully contemplat-
ing death in an assured faith of a resurrection from the
dead.'

Only those who have been brought up by a widowed
mother whose whole life had been snapped asunder by
such a loss, can quite realise how very peculiar and un-
like other homes it is.

How rare it is to be perfectly natural under a great
grief ! There is so often an element of self -conscious-
ness, an honest wondering how our attitude will strike
others. If we use self-control and try to let life flow in
its usual currents, we fear to be thought indifferent,
cold, and hard. If once the smallest display of grief
becomes in any way a habit, it is difficult to resume
again that perfect sincerity of manner which, after all,
is the only outward expression of true feeling. A short
time ago in 'The Weekly Sun,' in one of Mr. T. P.

NOVEMBER 117

O'Connor's wonderful reviews of a Life of Tolstoi, he
quotes a passage which is a very vivid picture of self-
consciousness in grief. ' Tolstoi describes his visit to
his mother's death - chamber : "I could not believe it
was her face." How this comes home to us all! The
change made by death, the effort of the brain to recog-
nise that what we see before us is the loved object,
whom, living, we should instantly have recognised
among a million. Tolstoi continues : "I looked fixedly
at it, and by degrees began to recognise in it the dear
familiar features. I shuddered when I did so, and knew
that this something was my mother. But why had her
closed eyes sunk thus into her head ? Why was she so
dreadfully pale ? and why was a dark spot visible
through her transparent skin on one of her cheeks?
Why was the expression of her face so stern and so
cold ? Why were her lips so bloodless and their lines
so fair, so grand ? Why did they express such unearthly
calmness that a cold shiver passed through me as I
looked at them ? . . . Both before the funeral and after
I did nob cease to weep and feel melancholy. But I do
not like to remember it, because a feeling of self-love
mingled with all its manifestations ; either a desire to
show that I was more afflicted than the rest, or thoughts
about the impression I produced upon others ; or idle
curiosity which made me examine Mimi's cap or the
faces of those around me." ' The reviewer adds: ' Now
I call this passage morbid.' It may be, but the descrip-
tion is extraordinarily true to many under the influence
of grief, though they fail to analyse or understand their
own mental state.

We all say, we all think, we all know, that ' in the
midst of life we are in death ' ; and yet when the blow
falls with appalling startlingness on someone who is near
to us, how we all must feel — with a piercing, heartrend-
ing reality—' If I had known ' !

n8 MORE POT-POURRI

If I had known, O loyal heart,
When, hand to hand, we said ' Farewell, '

How for all times our paths would part,
What shadow o'er our friendship fell,

I should have clasped your hand so close
In the warm pressure of my own

That memory still might keep its grasp—
If I had known.

If I had known when far and wide
We loitered through the summer land,

What presence wandered by our side,
And o'er you stretched its awful hand,

I should have hushed my careless speech
To listen well to every tone

That from your lips fell low and sweet—
If I had known.

If I had known when your kind eyes
Met mine in parting, true and sad —

Eyes gravely tender, gently wise,
And earnest rather more than glad —

How soon the lids would lie above,
As cold and white as sculptured stone,

I should have treasured every glance —
If I had known.

If I had known that, until Death

Shall with his fingers touch my brow,
And still the quickening of the breath

That stirs with life's full meaning now,
So long my feet must tread the way

Of our accustomed paths alone,
I should have prized your presence more —
If I had known.

CHRISTIAN REED ('Weekly Sun,' 1897).

Oh ! the anguish of that thought — that we can never
atone to our dead for the stinted affection we gave them,
for the light answers we returned to their plaints or
their pleadings, for the little reverence we showed to
that sacred human soul that lived so close to us and was
the divinest thing God had given us to know.

DECEMBER

Lonely evenings and more papers — Figs from France — Hornbeams
and Weeping Hornbeams— Wire netting round small fruit trees
—Damsons— Roman Hyacinths and Paper-white Narcissus-
Effect of coloured glass on plants — Use of corrugated iron —
Lord Lyndoch — Cultivation of Mistletoe — A list of plants-
Anniversary present -giving — Christmas decorations — Acetylene
gas — The old learning to live alone — Receipts.

December 1st. — I have been turning out more old let-
ters, and among other papers, with other memories and
connected with other times, I found this fragment of
what was evidently intended to be an autobiography of a
long life. As a sketch of a little boy's life nearly sev-
enty years ago, with its allusions to foreign lands and
customs now nearly extinct, I think it is not entirely
devoid of interest. I omit an account given of the
writer's family, the story of his father and mother, and
his own birth in Switzerland :

' My early youth was passed in many different places,
but I have not much recollection of them. One season
we had a house in Hereford Street, Park Lane — a site
now occupied by Hereford Gardens. I remember cows
being milked for purchasers in Hyde Park, and Blacks
playing the cymbals in the bands of the Guards.

' When very young we went to Scotland, where my
father, who was very devoted to every sort of sport,
enjoyed his life immensely. Those days were before the
railway period, and an Englishman in Scotland was a
comparatively rare person.

* Whilst I was in Edinburgh I went with my brother

("9)

i2o MORE POT-POURRI

Augustus to a large day-school called the Circus Place
School. It was attended by boys and girls of every
class that could afford to pay the fees, and the little
Scotch roughs used rather to bully us two English lads.
My dear mother, in her anxiety that we should not catch
cold by walking to school in the snow and sitting with
wet feet, used to send us there on bad days — of which
there were a good many in that abominable climate — in
a Sedan chair, the customary conveyance at that time in
Edinburgh. I shall never forget the jeers with which we
were greeted when, on arriving at the school, the chair
was opened by lifting up the top to release the door, and
we were shot out, spick and span, among the crowd of
little hardy brats who had trudged with their satchels on
their backs through the snow-slush which our mother so
dreaded for us !

'At this time I remember " Pickwick" coming out in
monthly numbers, and my father's anxiety for their
appearance as the month's end approached.

'Another subject of recollection is the efforts that
were made to get franks for letters from Members of
Parliament. The penny postage had not then been in-
vented, and my impression is that a letter to London
from Scotland was charged a shilling. I do not know
how many franks a day a Member had, but I think there
was a limit. If he did not require his full allowance for
his own correspondence, he used to oblige his friends by
signing his name on an envelope, as a Secretary of State
does now, and handing it to his applicant. It did not
seem to occur to anyone that the privilege was given to
facilitate a Member's official correspondence, and that
handing it on to others was an abuse of it.

'Whilst in Paris, Augustus and I attended a little
day-school of French boys. It was in a small street
somewhere near the Rue St. Honore". The great pump-

DECEMBER 121

kins then so much used in the poorer parts of Paris,
exhibited outside the little shops partly cut and showing
their yellow flesh, are among the recollections of those
daily walks to and from school.

'We used to have our midday meal at the school, and
I have grim memories of the Friday maigre dinner, with
a sour bonne femme soup which did not please our Brit-
ish beef- and mutton -trained appetites. But what do I
not owe to the admirable woman who assisted her hus-
band in his educational duties, and who stood over
Augustus and myself while with rigorous efforts she
endeavoured to convert our pronunciation of the French
word for bread from ' ' pang "to " pain ' ' ! How per-
sistent she was, that dear, conscientious Frenchwoman!
How often, with repeated and exaggerated aspiration of
the final "n," did she drive into our unaccustomed ears
the proper sound of that much (by Britons) murdered
monosyllable ! And she succeeded at last, and broke the
neck of our initial difficulties in French pronunciation.
I think I was nine years old at this time ; but the gloomy
little garden, with a horizontal gymnastic pole, and the
parallel bars under the one Lime tree, the whole screened
off from the next-door estate by an ivy -covered trellis,
are present to my sight.

' I have no recollection whatever of the journey from
Paris to Tours. We children, with the tutor and ser-
vants, must have made it by diligence, and perhaps my
remembrance of it has been obscured by the more vivid
impressions of the joys or the sufferings— the difference
depending upon which direction I was going in — of the
same journey several times performed on my way to and
from a school at Paris, which I will refer to later on.

' The house my father had taken at Tours was called
the "Grands Capucins" — I believe, from being a house
of retreat or "pleasaunce" house belonging to a Capucin

122 MORE POT-POURRI

monastery. And surely no monks, skilful as they were
in the selection of localities, ever chose a more charming
spot for a small villa -like residence where they could
retire from the austerities and the duties of the convent.

' Situated on the heights which rise on the right
bank of the Loire at this point in its course, and
immediately over the little faubourg of Tours, St.
Symphorien, it commanded an extensive and beautiful
view of the river, the town of Tours, and the rich
plains to the south watered by the rivers Cher and
Indre. The grounds, I fancy, were in extent about five
acres, but there were vineyards and other appurtenances
belonging to the estate, though not comprised in the
lease, which made an almost boundless playground for
children, and were so varied by terraces, caves in the
side of the hill, and other strange incidents of site, that
a great excitement was lent to the games of mimic
wars and surprises at which we were constantly playing.
There was a large tank under one side of the old house
— you descended to it by steps from the garden — and
armed with candles, for it was pitch-dark, and provided
with planks, we used to embark on its water and navi-
gate the mysterious cavern— an amusement that led to
wet feet and friction with Mrs. Hunt, the old nurse, in
consequence.

' The front part of the house was modern ; it stood
on a platform raised above the large formal garden
before it. The boundary of the garden was a terrace-
walk looking down on the river and the town. There
were no steamers, or very few, in those days, and, of
course, no railway ; and the long strings of flat -bot-
tomed barges, with their great white square sails, that
carried the merchandise from Nantes up the river when
the wind served, made a striking feature in the scene.

'There was a wine -press attached to. the rambling

DECEMBER 123

old house, and the proprietor made his wine from the
vineyards every autumn. There was also an old bil-
liard-table, and we used to do a little wine -pressing of
our own by putting the bunches of fat black grapes into
the net pockets and squeezing the juice into a jug. The
fruit of all sorts was magnificent ; the greengages, the
muscat grapes on the face of the cliff, the gooseberries,
strawberries, currants, and in autumn the walnuts,
were splendid objects for youthful greediness, and are
matters of life -long remembrance to me.

' The grounds and gardens were under the care of a
family who resided in a cottage and bore the name of
Diete. There were the Pere and Mere Diete, good old
sabot -wearing peasants who worked in and overlooked
the vineyards, while their son Martin attended to the
garden. We had a coachman called Joseph, an old
cavalry soldier who interested us children with his tales
of the siege of Antwerp by the French in 1832, and
particularly by his account of a cavalry charge in which
he took part. The noise of its galloping, he used to
say, was like the tonnerre de Dieu. His contempt of
the infantry soldier, whom he spoke of as le piou-piou,
was characteristic of the attitude of the dragoon towards
the foot -soldier in all armies.

'Augustus and I learnt to swim in the Loire. We
used to go out in a punt with a maitre de natation, who
hooked us on to a pole by a belt round our waists, and
so supported us in the water till we could keep our-
selves afloat. We also amused ourselves by sailing a
toy boat in the lagunes and back-waters of the river.
One day, while so occupied, a French lad of about fif-
teen or sixteen began throwing stones at our cutter.
Augustus, who was taller than I and much more daring,
rushed at the Frenchman, and, after a struggle with
him, was thrown on the sand. The French lad, who

124 MORE POT-POURRI

had the best of the wrestle, improved his advantage by
taking up handfuls of sand and rubbing it into Augus-
tus' eyes while he was lying helpless underneath. A
stout stick the French boy had brought with him had
fallen in the struggle under Augustus. I, seeing the
position, dragged the stick out from under the com-
batants, and began belabouring the Frenchman with
all my might. This soon converted our defeat into a
victory, and the enemy, extricating himself from his
antagonist, fled from the field. The lad's father then
appeared on the scene and relieved himself by a torrent
of abuse. In those days the memories of the old
struggles between England and France were still alive
among the populace, and we were constantly followed by
gamins shouting after us "Goddam Anglish" and other
contemptuous expressions.

' During our residence in Touraine, Augustus and I
went with Mr. Nicholl, the tutor, to visit the old castles
of the neighbourhood, and I remember going to Loches,
Chinon, Chenonceaux, and Chambord, travelling in the
little country diligences.

' In the winter evenings, at the "Capucins," my father
used to read Walter Scott's novels to us, and I recall
how we looked forward with excitement to the time of
resumption of the stories. "Quentin Durward" was
especially interesting to us, as the scene of a great part
of his adventures was within sight of our own house,
Plessis les Tours being just across the river.

' On the whole, my life at Tours was the part of my
youth to which I look back with the greatest pleasure.
It has tinged my whole existence with a great love of
France, and, until the experience of late years showed
me the childish petulance in political affairs of her peo-
ple, I had a sincere admiration and affection for them.

' The time came at last when I had to go to school.

DECEMBER 125

I was eleven years old when my father took me to Paris,
to a school for English boys kept by a M. Rosin, a
Swiss. It was established in a fair -sized house with
grounds round it, something like a superior villa at
Putney, near the Are de Triomphe and to the north of
the Champs Elysees. It was distinguished as No. 15
Avenue Chateaubriand, Quartier Beaujon, and has long
since disappeared. The whole region has become the
site of the fine hotels of the magnates of finance who
have since the 'forties peopled the neighbourhood of the
Champs Elysees. When I was at school, the Bois de
Boulogne was a scrubby waste. The only road of im-
portance through it from the Arc de Triomphe was
that to Neuilly.

'A few sorry hacks and donkeys stood saddled for
hire at the fringe of the Bois. There were no houses of
any size farther up the Champs Elysees than the Rond
Point, and near the Arc was a waste occupied by the
earth thrown out of the road in the leveling operations
of its construction. I remember it well, for it was on
the heaps resulting from the excavations that we stood
one bitterly cold day in the winter of 1840, from 8 A. M.
to 1.30, to see the funeral of the great Napoleon pass
through the arch on its way down the Champs Elysees
to his burial-place, in the crypt of the Invalides.

'Augustus followed me to the same school. I do not
think I could have been there more than eighteen
months, but it was long enough to have the recollection
of the journeyings in the diligence to and from Tours at
Christmas and at midsummer. Very happy migrations
they were on the way home, and very much the reverse
on the return to school.

' In the winter my father and mother used to come to
Paris, and take an apartment for a time in the H6tel
Mirabeau in the Rue de la Paix. And every Saturday

126 MORE POT-POURRI

while they were there we passed the afternoon and the
following day with them, sleeping in the hotel. There
was not much of the present luxury of washing at
schools in those days. At Rosin's, once in three weeks,
we were marched off to some bains where we could enjoy
a good wash in a warm bath and a surreptitious cake of
chocolate, provided by the garcon de bains for a consid-
eration. So there were great washings on the Saturday
nights at the hotel, superintended by our dear mother,
after our return from the "Franc.ais," where we were
always taken on the Saturday evenings for a lesson in
French. Rachel was just coming into celebrity, and we
sat through the long and, to us, unexciting Racine plays
in which she appeared, rather sleepy after dinner at a
restaurant and an afternoon of exceptional interest,
driving about the streets. Those strictly classical
plays, in which the three unities are rigidly observed,
were very tedious to us boys, and the prospect of an ice
at Tortoni's on the way home was more engrossing, I
am ashamed to own, than the passionate scenes ren-
dered by the great actress.

'I remember, while at Rosin's, going sometimes to
spend the afternoon and dine at Lord Elgin's, the hero
of the Elgin Marbles acquisition. He seemed to me
then a very old man, and always sitting at a writing-
table in a corner of a large room in their house in the
Faubourg St. Germain, while his daughters performed
the up-hill duty of trying to amuse me, a stupid, shy
boy of eleven. I was also taken out by other friends
of my father's, and can recall the intense sleepiness fol-
lowing an unwonted dinner at seven o'clock, before the
time came for being packed off in a fiacre to the
Avenue Chateaubriand.

'But the time came when Augustus and I, both des-
tined for the army, had to prepare, he for Woolwich and

DECEMBER 127

I for Sandhurst. It was decided that we should go to a
great preparatory school of those days for the military
colleges of the Queen's and East India Company's ser-
vices, kept by Messrs. Stoton and Mayor at Wimbledon.
The school was a large one, and would be thought a
rough one now. The only washing place was a room
on the ground floor, with sinks and leaden basins in
them, to which we came down in the morning to wash
our hands and faces. There was very little taught but
mathematics for the army boys, and classics for those
destined for Haileybury, the East India Company's col-
lege for the Indian Civil Service. Copley Fielding
taught some boys drawing and water-colour painting.
There was also a French class, presided over by a poor
little old Frenchman, M. Dell. I never in my life met a
being to whom the term "master" was less applicable.
The French master at the schools of sixty years ago was
not a happy person. He was despised of all men and
boys, and his position was one of such inferiority that
no man of any power or spirit was likely to fill it. Sto-
ton allowed no prize for the French class, and it has
been one of the most touching incidents of my life that
the poor old Frenchman gave me a little prize which he
paid for himself. It was a small edition of Florian's
fables. I had it with me for years, but where it has
gone to now I know not. It is perhaps buried some-
where among the increased belongings that inheritances
and a settled life have accumulated about me ; I wish I
could find it again. Augustus and I were probably the
only boys that had been in France, and certainly the
only ones with any pretension of speaking French, and
I think the good little man had a predilection for us
among the crowd of sneering John Bulls — hating him,
his language, and his country — that it was his hard
fate to teach. It would be a great delight if I could

128 MORE POT-POURRI

perform an anachronistic miracle and find him as he
then was, to give him a hundred times the value of his
poor little book.

'From Stoton's, at the age of fourteen, I went to the
Royal Military College at Sandhurst, and Augustus
must have gone to the Military Academy at Woolwich
about a year later. My father took me to the college,
and we slept the night before the entrance examination
at the "Tumble -down Dick" inn at Farnborough,
which was then the nearest station. The examination
was a farce, of course. I suppose they ascertained that
one could read and write, and the doctor satisfied him-
self you were not deformed, but I don't believe it went
much farther.' (Here the fragment ends.)

December 5th. — The weather is wonderfully mild. I
have a bunch of Tea Roses flowering in the room that
were picked out of doors yesterday. Have seasons
changed, or have the Roses ? I used to think Owen
Meredith's allusion to the Rose of October so true:

If Sorrow have taught me anything,
She hath taught me to weep for you ;

And if Falsehood have left me a tear to shed
For Truth, these tears are true.

If the one star left by the morning

Be dear to the dying night,
If the late lone rose of October

Be sweetest to scent and sight,

If the last of the leaves in December

Be dear to the desolate tree,
Remember, belov'd — O remember,

How dear is your beauty to me !

December 10th. — I have again been away. At last it
is quite winter, and everything is at rest outside. But
if all the outdoor Chrysanthemums, or even the hardiest
indoor ones, had been moved in October or November

DECEMBER 129

into sheltered places under shrubs and trees, or against
walls, there has been, up to now, no frost to hurt them
in such situations. Some that I moved twice this
autumn are not feeling it at all.

If Camellias are grown in pots, they make far more
buds than they can possibly carry, and severe disbud-
ding is most useful.

Outdoor Heaths seem to' do better for cutting back
after flowering.

Just lately I have received from the south of France
a box of dried figs, not pressed at all, but just dried in
the sun, as the peasants eat them. They are delicious, I
think ; far better than the usual dried figs we get in
England, the inside seeds of which, as a rule, are much
too hard.

December llth. — The Hornbeam — one of the old
indigenous trees of England, and among the very best
for firewood — is, judging from what I notice, very little
planted now and rarely named in catalogues. And yet
for many purposes it is useful and beautiful. It stands
the knife to any extent-, and makes most satisfactory

In my last book I spoke of pergolas — those covered
walks made with poles, or columns of bricks or stone,
and overgrown with creepers of all kinds. Now I
would speak of the 'charmilles' — walks either of turf or
gravel, covered over with arches of growing trees, with
no supports or wires or wood, merely the interlacing of
the boughs till they grow thick overhead with continual
pruning. There is a little short walk of this kind at
Hampton Court — I forget how it is made (I mean, with
what trees it is planted) — and in the Boboli Gardens at
Florence there are endless varieties, as everyone knows,
of these covered walks. They would be very beautiful
on the north or east side of many a sunny lawn ; and if

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a garden were too small for such a walk, there might
still be room for an occasional self -forming arch, which
adds mystery and charm to any garden. It could be
made either with Hornbeam, Beech, or (perhaps best of
all in light soil) Mountain Ash, which flowers — and
berries too — all the better for judicious pruning, and
which could make a support as well for Honeysuckle or
a climbing Rose. This kind of planting to gain deep
shade can be done over a seat, and would not take very
long to grow into a natural arbour. A Weeping Horn-
beam— which, I suppose, must be a modern gardening
invention, as it is not mentioned in Loudou's very com-
prehensive 'Arboretum et Fruticetum' — is also a splendid
tree for a sunny lawn; and in the female plant the long,
loose, pendulous catkins are very attractive. The seeds
ripen in October, and the bunches or cones which con-
tain them should be gathered by hand when the nuts are
ready to drop out. The nuts separate easily from the
envelope, and if sown at once will come up the following
spring. All this sounds rather slow, for in these days
people buy all they want and never wait. Messrs. Ve itch
sell both kinds of Hornbeams, and even tall, well -grown
plants of the weeping kind are not expensive.

'Bosquets, or groves, are so called from bouquet, a
nosegay; and I believe gardeners never meant anything
else by giving this term to this compartment, which is a
sort of green knot, formed by branches and leaves of
trees that compose it placed in rows opposite each
other.' The author of 'The Retired Gardener' then
adds : ' I have named a great many compartments in
which Hornbeam is made use of ; yet methinks none of
them look so beautiful and magnificent as a gallery
with arches.'

December 13th. — We have just been digging up and
preparing a good -sized oblong piece of ground in the

DECEMBER 131

best and sunniest part of the kitchen garden, and
moving into it gooseberries and currants — red, white,
and black. Round this I am going to place, after
considerable deliberation and doubt, a high fine -wire
fencing, with an opening on one side instead of a gate —
which reduces the expense — and the opening can be
covered when necessary with a net. The reason for not
wiring over the top, besides the expense, is that it causes
a rather injurious drip in rainy weather and breaks down
under the snow. I am also assured by good gardeners
that it is unnecessary, and that the wire netting round
the sides is a most effectual protection to the bushes, as
small birds do not fly downwards into a wire -netted
enclosure. My gardener is very skeptical on this point,
and says he thinks our birds are too clever to be kept
out by such half -measures. I think we have an undue
share of birds, as on one side of the kitchen garden there
is a small copse, belonging to a neighbour, which has
been entirely neglected for years, and presents the
appearance of what one would imagine a virgin forest
might be. This affords the most extraordinary pro-
tection for birds, and bullfinches and greenfinches
abound. They not only do harm to the fruit when it is
ripe, but they strip the trees of their buds in dry weather
in early spring. If this new wire netting answers, I am
told we ought to have three times the fruit for a less
quantity of bushes. I shall grow white currants on the
netting, with battens or sticks fastened to it as a
protection from the heat of the zinc wire, which is fatal
to everything. The trees are now all whitened with a
preparation of lime, which is distasteful to the birds and
insects. After all this, I shall indeed be disappointed if
my crop of small fruit is not larger this year. However,
a late frost may still defeat us altogether.

Mr. Wright, in his book ' Profitable Fruit -growing'

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(171 Fleet street, London), has a sentence on the pur-
chasing of fruit trees, which is so good I must copy it:
* First look to the character and position of the vendors,
and deal with those who have reputations to maintain.
They cannot afford to sell inferior trees or, what is of
vital importance, distribute varieties under wrong names.
It is a very serious matter to grow fruit trees for some
years, then when they bear find they are not the sorts
ordered, but inferior. Time thus lost cannot be
regained. Order early in October, and the sooner the
trees arrive and are planted after the leaves fall, the
better they will grow.' He goes on to say, what is
equally true, that the best trees are spoilt by bad plant-
ing, and it is deplorable to see how roughly the work
is often done through lack of knowledge. Every kind of
instruction is clearly given by Mr. Wright in this excel-
lent, inexpensive little book, and if read carefully and
followed, things must go right. I have fallen this year
into the so common fault of ordering the little I meant
to have too late ; but, as they are only a few hardy
Damson trees, I hope they will forgive me and do well
all the same. Damsons are certainly not cultivated
enough, and yet, after Morello Cherries, they make the
best of jams and no fruit tree gives such big crops for
so little outlay. The trees enjoy full exposure and need
hardly any attention, but it is well to remember to stake
them securely, to prevent strong winds blowing them
about and straining the roots. Our only trouble is the
birds, who eat out the buds before they even blossom.
Some buds we could spare, but that is not Mr. Bully's
way; if he begins on a tree he completely clears it, as
the missel -thrushes do the Rowan berries of summer.
Last year they fixed on a Pear tree that was covered
rather early with buds, and in one week every trace and
promise of blossom was gone.

DECEMBER 133

December 14th. — I have a large field in which we
have generally grown the coarser kind of vegetables —
Potatoes, Cabbages, Jerusalem Artichokes, etc., and such
things that do best in a very sunny, open place. Find-
ing that now, as I do not go to London, I do not require
such a large supply of vegetables, I am going to sow
and grabs over half the field. It is between this and the
vegetable part that I have been planting the row of
Damson trees — half common and half cluster, by way
of experiment. The Bullace, a true cottager's fruit, is a
variety of the Damson, and not to be lightly regarded
for both preserving and pies. It ripens soon after other
Damsons, and so a succession is made.

December 15th. — I am told some people have tried
and approved of my suggestion of arranging greenhouse
Chrysanthemums in groups of colour instead of dotting
them about all mixed, one injuring the effect of the
other. But I have not yet had the pleasure of seeing
a large greenhouse so arranged, and I have not room for
a great number myself. One of the very best is Abra-
ham Lincoln, with its bushy habit, its grand bluish
leaves, and its strong yellow flowers, which remain a
good yellow at night. A charming small, but most dec-
orative Chrysanthemum is called 'Mrs. Carter.' It is
pale yellow, white at night, and its growth and appear-
ance are just like those of a Sweet Sultan.

I saw the other day a little Geranium (Pelargonium),
called ' New Life,' that was new to me ; the petals were
white and red mixed. Growing on the plant, it was not
especially pretty; but picked and mixed with some light
green it had quite an uncommon appearance. I thought
on first seeing it that it was a double Bouvardia. ' Mrs.
Leopold Rothschild ' is a most beautiful pink Carnation.

Just now I have several pots in full flower of an
orchid that never fails year after year, Lygopetalum

134 MORE POT-POURRI

mackayi. It does not require much heat, and lasts a
long time, either on the plant or in water. It throws up
long flowering stems, has a most delicious perfume, is
quiet in colour — yellowish green and brownish purple
— and very refined in shape. I find it a most useful
plant for the time of year, and we have many more
pots than we had, so it is not very difficult to increase.

In the corner of the greenhouse there is a good group
of Poinsettia pulcherrima. Some people say they do not
like these rather curious plants. They are useless for
putting into water, but I think they look very bright
and cheerful on these dark days. They do best if grown
every year from cuttings.

December 19th. — We have been more successful this
year with the forcing of bulbs — Roman Hyacinths and
Paper -white Narcissus — than ever before, and I think
it is a good deal owing to having carefully obeyed the
instructions given in a little pamphlet, ' How I came to
grow Bulbs,' which I have mentioned before. Mr. Rob-
ert Sydenham is as instructive about pot culture as he is
about outdoor culture. He gives exactly the information
required ; and if this is carefully read there can be no
confusion as regards the different treatment required by
Narcissi, Tulips, and Hyacinths. A great many nur-
serymen profess to sell the Chinese Lily, really a Tazetta
Narcissus with a yellow centre, which grows with ex-
treme rapidity in bowls of water; but instead of the
true thing they often send out the Paper -white Nar-
cissus.

Late though it is, I have been moving pieces of
Kerria japonica and planting them against the bare
stems of moderate -sized trees. They do admirably, and
look so gay and bright in spring. They can be tied to
the trunk for support, and the branches of the tree
above protect them from spring frosts. They are most

DECEMBER 135

amiable plants, and in no way resent being moved about.
The single and variegated Kerrias are not such strong
growers as the double. If the latter get to look untidy,
they can be removed after flowering.

I saw a curious account in a newspaper lately about
the colour of glass greatly affecting the growth of
plants. The discoverer of this theory is Camille Flam-
inarion, the French astronomer. He has found that
plants grown in a red hot -house become, in a given
time, four times as big as those exposed to ordinary
sunlight. The poorest development, practically amount-
ing to failure, was under blue glass ; and lettuces grown
under green glass did badly. It would be interesting to
try experiments. I wonder if it would answer to colour
red the stuff sold for painting the glass of greenhouses
as a shade in summer?

We have done a great deal of pruning this year of
our old Apple trees, sawing out large branches in the
middle to let in air. The trees have been shortened
back so much that they bear far too many apples, and
none come to any size.

December 18th. — We have never been very successful
here with the growing of Mushrooms. We have no
Mushroom house, and have to try what can be done in
various sheds and outhouses. I am told that the most
essential point to remember is that the horses must have
no green food or carrots during the time that the drop-
pings are being collected. My own belief is that our
beds have been kept too dry, and that this is the reason
of our failure, in spite of making up the beds with the
greatest care, according to the directions in the excellent
little books which are sold everywhere, and which always
represent Mushroom culture as the easiest thing in the
world. Also, it may be that when the beds were watered
it was not with rain-water. Our soil is so sandy that

136 MORE POT-POURRI

even when mixed with anything that is put to it, it
dries more easily than any ordinary garden soil. This
winter my gardener has tried, with marked and satis-
factory success, a bed under the greenhouse stage. It is
made up in the ordinary way, and darkened and saved
from the drip of the plants above by a sheet or two of
that invaluable corrugated iron, which I mentioned
before, and which I find more and more useful for pro-
tection at night, protection for pot -plants in spring,
keeping the wet out of sunk pits, shading summer cut-
tings effectually, and so on. It also makes an excellent,
though ugly, paling instead of a wall. Even Peach trees
will grow well against it if the plants are tied to pieces
of batten or sticks— some stuck into the ground and
the branches tied horizontally from stick to stick, and
some put across the zinc — as then the plant, be it Peach
or Vine, enjoys the heat radiated from the zinc, which
yet cannot burn or injuriously dry the bark in summer.
In winter it is still more important that air should be
between the plant and the zinc, which gets extremely
cold in frosty weather. This, of course, applies equally
to covering zinc houses or sheds with creepers.

This is a long digression from the Mushroom bed.
We have already had several excellent and useful dishes
off it from this the first experiment. Our outer cellar
is too cold here to grow Mushrooms in winter, though
it does well to grow the common Chicory for the
Barbe-de-Capucin salad, and also protects from early
autumn frosts the Broad -leaved Batavian Endive, which
does so infinitely better here than the Curled Endive.
We grow this in large quantities. It makes by far the
best late autumn salad, and is also quite excellent
stewed . ( See ' Dainty Dishes . ' )

We have not yet succeeded here with the vegetable
now so much sold in London in early spring; viz.,

DECEMBER 137

Witloof or Large Brussels Chicory, but I mean to try
this next year.

I went to lunch to-day with a neighbour, whose
house is full of things recalling memories which belong
to other days. As we sat at luncheon I began to gaze,
as I invariably do, at whatever hangs on the walls, and
I am always thankful when I have not to look at photo-
graphs. I have plenty of these myself, but they are the
least decorative of furnishing pictures. On the wall
opposite to me was rather an uncommon print of the
Duke of Wellington, looking more than usually martial
and stand -upright, and with an extra severe thunder-
cloud behind him. It was from a picture by Lawrence,
I expect, and a fine thing in its way. As a pendant to
this was another print of a soldier. I turned to my
hostess and, pointing to it, said: 'Who is that?' My
friend answered, with rather a marked tone: ' Why, that
is Lord Lyndoch,' as if most certainly I ought to have
known. Now, frankly, I had never heard of Lord
Lyndoch, so I said rather humbly and inquiringly :
' Peninsula, I suppose ? But I am very badly read ; who
was he ? ' And then she told me : ' Why, the Grahame
who went to the wars after his wife's death, as you
describe in your book in speaking of young Mrs. Gra-
hame's picture in the Edinburgh Gallery.' She added :
' He was on Sir John Moore's staff and standing close
by his horse when he was wounded at Corunna, and Sir
John Moore was carried into Mr. Grahame' s tent or hut,
where he shortly died, and the poor young man was so
utterly exhausted he lay on the floor by his dead friend
and slept.' She told me that Lord Lyndoch was a known
feature in society and a visitor in country houses in her
youth, and she remembered him well at her grand-
mother's house in Hertfordshire.

December 19th. — The weather has been so astonish-

138 MORE POT-POURRI

ing the last few days one cannot realise it is the week,
not of the shortest days, but of the shortest afternoons
of the whole year. This sentence brought about a
fearful coolness between me and my dear secretary,
who asked for an explanation of the statement, and,
when I tried to give it, failed to understand. We agreed
to refer the matter to an authority that we both believed
in. The next day brought the following reply : ' The
explanation you require is, I think, hardly suited to
" Pot-Pourri." I should put it somehow thus, "that
week in which the almanack tells us the days are grow-
ing shorter, though the sun sets at a later hour." Of
course the afternoon does not grow longer. Noon is the
moment at which the sun crosses the meridian, and it
then attains its highest point for the day ; and, of
course, if it rises later, it also sets earlier. The appa-
rent anomaly occurs thus — the solar day, which is
measured from the time the sun crosses the meridian
on one day to the time it does ditto on the next, is not
of uniform length. The reasons — which you need not
read — are : (1) The path of the sun does not lie in the
equator, but in the ecliptic ; (2) owing to the earth's
orbit not being circular, its motion in the ecliptic is not
uniform. Now, it would manifestly be very uncom-
fortable to have days of varying length ; therefore, an
imaginary sun has been invented which is supposed to
behave in a decent and orderly fashion ; the time by
him is called "mean time," and is that shown by a
watch. The time shown by the real sun is called
"apparent time," and is that shown by a sun-dial.
The difference between these two times is as much as
sixteen minutes at certain seasons of the year. Now,
on the shortest day the sun crosses the meridian nearly
two minutes before twelve o'clock. He was earlier
the few days before ; therefore, his time of setting

DECEMBER 139

was earlier too. Suppose that on December 21st ap-
parent noon is at 11.58 A. M., and the sun sets at 3.51
P.M., and on December 14th the apparent noon is at
11.55 A. M., and the sun sets at 3.49 P. M. Now the
afternoon on December 14th is one minute longer than
on December 21st (3 hours 54 minutes to 3 hours 53
minutes), and yet the sun has set two minutes earlier
(by our watches).'

December 20ih. — Another beautiful afternoon. Such
clear yellow skies ! To me the top twigs of Holly bushes
against a primrose sky recall, oh ! so many winter days
in the past ; long walks through bare woods and rus-
tling brown leaves beneath our feet; the closing -in of
curtains in the warm fire -lit rooms where we grew up,
which in old age I see as plainly as if I had never left
the house where I was born. But to return to the
weather of this year, the following was in a newspaper a
day or two ago : 'A beautiful yellow butterfly was seen
disporting itself in the sunshine of yesterday.7 I did
not see a butterfly here, but Chrysanthemums still
linger, Violets are out, and the yellow Jasminium nudi-
florum is in unusually full flower.

I have no Mistletoe here, but I presume I might have
it if I cultivated it. It no doubt has become so much
rarer from being always cleared out of orchards, the
pretty pale -fruited parasite being no friend to the
Apple trees. If one wishes to cultivate the Mistletoe,
select a young branch of Willow, Poplar, Thorn, or an
old Apple or Pear tree, and on the underside slit the
bark to insert the seed. The best time to do this is in
February. One may merely rub a few seeds on the out-
side of the bark, but that is not so safe as inserting
them actually under the bark. Raising Mistletoe from
seed is better than either grafting or budding.

This is a good time for planting Ivies. There are

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many different kinds, and they will grow in such a sat-
isfactory way in such bad places. In London gardens
or back yards Ivy can be made into quite a feature. As
Curtis says, in his ' Flora Londinensis ' : ' Few people
are acquainted with the beauty of Ivy when suffered to
run up a stake, and at length to form itself into a
standard ; the singular complication of its branches and
the vivid hue of its leaves give it one of the first places
amongst evergreens in a shrubbery.'

My Lancashire friend sends me a list of a few Roses
and annuals. Lists are always so useful to all garden-
ers, as it is interesting to know what one has got and
what one has not, that I give his list as he wrote it :
'To begin with Roses. Kaiserin Augusta Victoria,
Allister Stella Gray (climber), Gustave Regis, Maman
Cochet, have done best with me. Adonis autumnalis,
Alonsoa Warscewiczii, and Kaulfussia amelloides are three
annuals new to me. Ads autumnalis is a small South
of Europe bulb, rare and supposed to thrive out of
doors in sandy soil. Cimicifuga racemosa — I think all
borders ought to have this tall- growing, handsome
herbaceous plant ; Dictamnus fraxinella and its white
variety, Eupatorium purpureum, Oypsophila prostrata,
Phygelius capensis, Polemonium Richardsoni, Rudbeckia
purpurea, Spigelia Marilandica, Sty rax japoniea, Thalic-
trum flavum. Withenia origanifolia is a new, very
highly praised creeper which I shall try.' I cannot find
this creeper mentioned in any of my gardening books.
Phormium tenax (the New Zealand Flax) makes a very
handsome tub plant for a bare entrance drive or large
terrace. If treated like the Agapanthus, in full sun, it
flowers.

Two or three years ago, when I knew nothing about
Roses, a very clever Rose grower, who had devoted his
life to them, wrote me out the following list, with the

DECEMBER 141

assurance that every one of them was worth having: 'A
selection of Roses which, in ground well dug and lib-
erally fed with farmyard manure, sheltered but not over-
shadowed, like Phyllis, "never fail to please." Hybrid
Perpetuals: Duke of Edinburgh, Etienne Levet,
General Jacqueminot, Her Majesty, Jules Margottin,
Margaret Dickson, Mrs. John Laing, Merveille de
Lyon, Paul Neyron, Ulrich Briinner. Hybrid Teas:
Captain Christy, Grace Darling, Gustave Regis, Lady
Mary Fitzwilliam, La France, Viscountess Folkestone,
Caroline Testout. Teas: Anna Ollivier, Bouquet d'Or,
Homere, Madame de Watteville, Madame Falcot,
Madame Hoste, Marie Van Houtte, Perles des Jardins.
Polyantha: Cecile Brunner, Perle d'Or.'

I have a near neighbour who is a most successful
Rose grower. Walking through his beautifully kept
beds the other day, I noted that the centre parts of the
plant, both in standards and dwarfs, had some bracken
twisted into them. This is a great protection against
the coming frosts. For anyone who cares about the
choicer Ferns, it is a protection to them, too, to have
their own leaves twisted round them in the shape of a
knob of hair on a woman's head, firmly tucking in the
ends so that the winds of March may not untwist them.

December 21st. — The perennial and ever -recurrent
aspect of the London streets at this time of year always
reminds me of the old happy Christmas holidays and of
long walks with three young gentlemen lately returned
home, who then considered it my chief defect that I had
not three arms. The mental attitude which I tried to
instil into them was to, enjoy looking in at the shop-
windows rather than to admire or, above all, wish to
possess the extraordinary amount of rubbish displayed
inside, which, though it looked well enough arranged in
redundant heaps, would, I thought, seem to them mere

i42 MORE POT-POURRI

money wasted in poor, useless stuff if they brought it
home. I dare say I am prejudiced in these matters,
having always had a very great dislike to wholesale
present -giving at fixed anniversaries, whether birthdays,
Christmas, or New Year.

I think that while children are quite small — say, up
to the age of ten or twelve — we might leave the matter
as it stands at present, as the said redundant heap on
the nursery floor may give a peculiar pleasure of its
own. But this is quite different from an obligatory
present -giving to all sorts of people — servants and
dependents, grown-up children, fathers, mothers, and
old grannies. We all know houses where this kind of
thing is much practised, and where, year after year, it
is an immense toil to the givers, and but very little
appreciated by the receivers. It is almost laughable,
the way that people who are apparently the greatest
supporters of this custom of present -giving at stated
times -groan over the trouble and expense it entails, and
congratulate themselves and each other when the ter-
rible Christmas fortnight is at an end.

This fashion of giving presents to all sorts of
promiscuous people at special times has immensely
increased since my childhood, when it was only
beginning — imported no doubt, as far as Christmas is
concerned, from Germany. The French, who keep their
rubbish -giving for the New Year, confine themselves
almost entirely to flowers and bonbons, which, if
equally useless, have at least the merit of passing away
and of not crowding up our chimneypieces and writing-
tables. The turning of every shop into a bazaar ; the
display of meat, game, and turkeys on the outside of
shops ; the spending of a disproportionate amount of
money on feasting — all this is comparatively recent. I
can quite well remember, as a girl, the excitement of

DECEMBER 143

first decorating a church. This developed into a fashion
with the High Church party, and is not an old custom.
I know one old clergyman who to this day refuses to
allow any Christmas decorations, and says : 'Why
desecrate my church with evergreens V If it has any
antiquity it is a Pagan revival, like flowers for the dead.
It may be pretty and desirable, or the contrary, but it
is not Old English, though the Druids may have been
as fond of mistletoe as they were of oaks.

To return to present -giving at anniversaries. I am
more than willing to admit, as I have already said, that
quite young children get considerable pleasure out of
this custom, but even in their case it has distinct draw-
backs. When children receive too many presents at the
same time, it is apt to encourage criticism and ingrati-
tude ; and having to thank for what they do not want
or already possess is too early a training in what might
seem to a child hypocrisy. Not to look a gift horse in
the mouth is excellent and reasonable to those who
understand it, but neither in word nor idea does it
convey anything to a child's mind. I heard two
delicious child anecdotes last winter. One was of a
village schoolboy helping to decorate a Christmas tree
for himself and his schoolfellows. He made a touching
appeal to the kind but tired lady who was doing the
same : ' Please, teacher, if you have anything to do with
it, will you see that I get something that is not a pocket
handkerchief ? I've got seven already ! ' Sad to say,
his eighth pocket handkerchief had been assigned to
him, and he had to put up with it. The other story
was of a rich little lady who was taken to a neighbour's
Christmas tree. On receiving a new doll, she said to
her mother : ' Really, I don't know, mother, what I
shall do with this doll. I have so many already, how
can I find room for her?'

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It goes against my sense of the fitness of things to
put either charity or affection into a treadmill, and force
people to give presents at a particular fixed time. Do
we not all know the phraseology so often heard in the
shops : ' Will this do ? Does it look enough f It won't
be much use, but that doesn't matter. Oh ! here's a
new book that will do for So-and-so.' I heard of a
wretched lady, with rather well-known tastes in one
direction, who last Christmas received seven copies of
one book. Then there are the presents for dependents,
which are chosen in imitation of the luxuries of the
master and mistress, — the sham jewel brooch or the
shoddy Gladstone bag, which costs fifteen shillings and
is supposed to ' look like thirty.' All this kind of thing
seems to me false, and many people I know are ready
enough to acknowledge what a slavery it is and how
undesirable. Some reconcile themselves to the folly by
saying : ' Well, it can't be helped, and it's good for
trade.' Even if this kind of artificial demand is really
good for trade, which many doubt, this has nothing to
do with whether it has a good or a bad effect on
ourselves, on our children, and on those who sur-
round us.

The giving of wedding presents, though it is continu-
ally referred to as a tax, is so essentially useful to the
receivers when judiciously done that I not only say
nothing against it, but think nothing against it. I
remember, in the early 'sixties, a cousin who was the
victim of twenty -seven ormolu inkstands; but the prac-
ticalness of the present day solves the difficulty of dupli-
cates, as the young people, without the smallest conceal-
ment, sell or exchange what they do not care about.

Though few people may agree with my abuse of whole-
sale present -giving at anniversaries, I think no one will
deny that it tends to destroy some of the most delightful

DECEMBER 145

outward expressions of feeling that can exist between
civilised human beings. To take the trouble to find out
what somebody really wants ; to be struck by something
beautiful, and to know to whom to give it ; to supply a
real want to those who cannot afford it for themselves ;
to give anything, however trifling, as a remembrance —
all these are the gentle sweeteners of life, and need none
of those goading reminders which come with the return
of anniversaries. And to come to the more selfish aspect
of the question. Instead of the callousness, and almost
fatigue, in consequence of receiving a great number of
presents at once, is there not a delight that lasts through
life, until we are quite old, at suddenly receiving a sym-
pathetic and unexpected gift ?

A great many people use holly and evergreens at
Christmas -time to stick about the room in empty vases,
round pictures, etc. But they hardly ever take the
trouble to peel their stalks and put them in water,
though — especially with holly — this makes all the dif-
ference as regards the retaining of its freshness; and if
arranged in a glass, not too thickly, it looks much more
beautiful, and does not acquire a dusty, degraded appear-
ance before New Year's Day. I cannot bear to see the
poor evergreens shrivelling in the hot rooms. We used
to have hardly any Holly berries in the garden here, but
by judicious pruning in February we now get quantities
of a very fine kind.

One of my many correspondents wrote : ' If you are
interested in the lighting of country houses, I can recom-
mend the acetylene gas which our gardener makes for us.
We have used it for over a year, and find it quite charm-
ing— a brilliant light, delightful to read by, cool, clean,
and harmless to silver, flowers, and clothes, and safe, so
far as our experience goes. Ours is the ' 'pure acetylene, ' '
made by Raol Picket's patent, and not the explosive kind.'
J

146 MORE POT-POURRI

December 22nd. — After all the fine, mild weather I
have been mentioning, it suddenly began to freeze, with
hard, cold, moonlight nights. So to-day I thought of
my little birds. I now find it prettier and less trouble,
instead of hanging the string with cocoanut and suet
from a window or a stiff cross-bar, to arrange it in the
following way: I cut a big branch, lopping it more or
less, and push it through the hole of a French iron
garden -table, that I happen to have, which holds an
umbrella in summer. On the other side of the house I
stick a similar branch into the ground. On these I hang,
Christmas-tree fashion, some pieces of suet and a tallow
candle — the old 'dip' — a cocoanut with a hole cut, not at
the bottom as I recommended before, but in the side,
large enough for the Tom -tits to sit on the edge and
peck inside, and yet roofed enough to prevent the rain-
water collecting in it. They seem to have remembered
the feeding from last year, as they began at the piece of
suet at once. On the table below I used to put a basin
to hold crumbs and scraps from meals — rice, milk, any-
thing almost, for the other birds who will not eat either
the fat or the cocoanut. But I found this was such a
great temptation to the cats and dogs of the establish-
ment, who became most extraordinarily acrobatic in the
methods by which they got on to the table, that I had to
devise wiring the saucer of a flower -pot and so hanging
it on to the most extended branch, out of reach of the
cleverest of Miss Pussies. If once it freezes very hard,
I put out bowls of tepid water. This the birds much
appreciate.

December 23rd.— I have been out for a walk long
after dark — or, rather, long after sunset, for the moon
was shining bright in the cold indigo sky. At all times
of year walking by moonlight gives me exquisite delight.
Is it because I have done it so rarely, or because of the

DECEMBER 147

great beauty and mystery of it all ? I went along our
high road, the road along which Nelson travelled to
Portsmouth on his way to Trafalgar, never to return.
This evening it shone white and dry in the moonlight,
and the tall black telegraph-poles — double the height
and strength of those they replaced a few years ago,
and which I have always hated for their aggressive size
by daylight — in the winter moonlight only seemed to
me straight and strong, and as if proud to support that
wonderful network of wires which now encompasses the
entire globe, annihilating time and making the far and
the near as one, ceaselessly carrying those messages of
happiness and despair, life and death, which, in the
space of a moment, in the opening of an envelope,
bring sorrow or joy to many a home. Something of
the mystery of it all the wires sang to me to-night,
with JEolian sounds different from any I have ever
heard, on this one of the last evenings of a year that
is nearly gone. By my lonely fireside, this poem came
to my recollection :

The old friends, the old friends,

We loved when we were young,
With sunshine on their faces

And music on their tongue !
The bees are in the Almond flower,

The birds renew their strain ;
But the old friends once lost to us

Can never come again.

The old friends, the old friends,

Their brow is lined with care ;
They've furrows in the faded cheek

And silver in the hair;
But to me they are the old friends still,

In youth and bloom the same
As when we drove the flying ball

Or shouted in the game.

I48 MORE POT-POURRI

The old men, the old men,

How slow they creep along !
How naughtily we scoffed at them

In days when we were young !
Their prosing and their dosing,

Their prate of times gone by,
Their shiver like an aspen-leaf

If but a breath went by.

But we, we are the old men now;

Our blood is faint and chill ;
We cannot leap the mighty brook

Or climb the break-neck hill.
We maunder down the shortest cuts,

We rest on stick or stile,
And the young men, half ashamed to laugh,

Yet pass us with a smile.

But the young men, the young men,

Their strength is fair to see ;
The straight back and the springy stride,

The eye as falcon free ;
They shout above the frolic wind

As up the hill they go;
But though so high above us now,

They soon shall be as low.

Oh! weary, weary, drag the years,

As life draws near the end ;
And sadly, sadly, fall the tears

For loss of love and friend.
But we'll not doubt there's good about

In all of human kind ;
So here's a health, before we go,

To those we leave behind !

December 24th. — It is so curious after a full life to
be alone on Christmas eve. But, of course, it was my
own choice, and not necessary. I could have gone
away, but I love these winter afternoons and the long
evenings at home. It is also, I think, essential wis-

DECEMBER 149

dom that the old should learn to live alone without
depression, and, above all, without that far more deadly
thing — ennui. I have no doubt that training for old
age, to avoid being a bore and a burden to others, is
as desirable as any other form of education. The
changes brought about by circumstances mean, in a
sort of way, a new birth, and one has to discover for
oneself the best methods of readjusting the details of
one's life. I find this poem written in one of my
notebooks many years ago by a man whom I had
known from childhood. Though he was not the
author, the poem represented his feelings rather than
mine. It has truth in it, but it has also a touch of
bitterness, which appealed, no doubt, to a man who
had reaped nothing but life's failure. He had always
lived up in balloons of his own imaginings, believing
in ultimate wealth, and having the power to draw
forth money from others, merely to lose it. He died
in old age and poverty, in a garret at Venice. Do we
reap as we sow? Very often; not always. I am sure
that, up to now, I have never got back in mushrooms
what I have spent in spawn. Of course the fault is
mine ; I know that.

Laugh, and the world laughs with you;

Weep, and you weep alone,
For this brave old earth must borrow its mirth —

It has sorrows enough of its own.
Sing, and the hills will answer;

Sigh, it is lost in air,
For the echoes bound to a joyous sound —

They shrink from the voice of care.

Rejoice, and men will seek you;

Grieve, and they all will go,
For they want full measure of all your pleasure —
They do not heed your woe.

150 MORE POT-POURRI

Be glad, and your friends are many ;

Be sad, and you lose them all,
For none will decline your nectared wine —

Alone, you must drink life's gall.

Feast, and your halls are crowded ;

Fast, and the world goes by ;
Succeed and give ; it will help you live —

No man can help you die.
There is room in the halls of pleasure

For a long and lordly train,
But one by one we must all pass on

Through the narrow aisles of pain.

I like ' Bethia HardacreV song better, and to me the
spirit is truer:

Bring me the book whose pages teach
The fortitude the Stoics preach;
Bring me the tome within whose scope
There lies the quickening of dead hope ;
Bring me the comfort of a mind
That good in every ill can find,
And of a heart that is content
With its desire's relinquishment.

RECEIPTS

A kind friend sent me to-night half a pumpkin — a
real French pumpkin. (See Vilmorin's 'Vegetable Gar-
den,' Potiron jaune gros.) It was grown near here, and
had kept perfectly. It was moist, and a beautiful apri-
cot colour inside. I wonder always why the only pump-
kin grown in England is the vegetable marrow. Sutton
feebly recommends others in his book, but hardly makes
enough of them as useful winter vegetables. Here is a
true French receipt for Pumpkin Soup. Cut up the
slices of pumpkin (say, about half a large one), and boil
them in water. When well cooked, strain off the water

DECEMBER 151

and pass the pulp through a sieve. Boil half a pint of
milk, add a piece of butter, very little salt, and a good
tablespoonful of castor sugar. Pour this boiling milk
on to the pumpkin pulp. Let it boil a few minutes.
The soup must be thick, and small fried crusts should be
sent up with it. This receipt is enough for two people.
Dried vegetable marrow is not supposed to be so good,
but I had some soup to-night, prepared exactly in the
same way, from a large dried vegetable marrow, and it
was excellent, though it had not quite so much flavour.

All through the last month my salads have been
nearly as good as in summer, from tarragon and chive
tops being forced in the greenhouse. Parsley and cher-
vil are still good out of doors. When once one has
become used to the herbs in salad, it does seem so taste-
less without them.

Lentil Toast. — Four to six ounces of lentils, one
ounce of butter, water, and slices of buttered toast.
Look over and thoroughly rinse the lentils, and put
them into a small saucepan with enough water to well
cover them. Cook slowly till they are tender and the
water all absorbed (ten to twenty minutes). Add but-
ter, pepper, and salt; spread thickly on the hot, buttered
toast, and serve with mint sauce. Suitable as a supper
or breakfast dish.

Green and White Haricot Beans. — Soak in cold
water for twelve or even twenty -four hours, then put
them into boiling water, with a little salt and two
minced shallots. Cook till tender, but not mashed.
They will take from two to two and a half hours, and
must be watched. A bunch of herbs and a bacon bone,
or a little raw bacon, greatly improve the flavour, but can
easily be omitted. Before dishing up, toss them in a
little butter and serve very hot. Thin English melted
butter, with chopped parsley, can be used as a change.

i52 MORE POT-POURRI

It is worth while to know that with all hard vegeta-
bles—peas, beans, lentils, etc.— if they have not been
soaked the day before, the way to boil them slowly is to
add every now and then a tablespoonful of cold water.
The same thing applies to dried fruit.

To Roast a Fine Large Volatile (Chicken or capon
or young turkey) . — Take some very fat bacon or a good
tablespoonful of good grease (clarified fat of beef or
pork kidney, half and half) . Dissolve it in a very deep
copper stewpan, and let it get hot, but not very hot.
Put the chicken into it, having previously well trussed
it; chop up the liver and gizzard with some unsmoked
raw bacon, and insert this in the bird. Put the lid on,
and let it braise gently, on top of the hot-plate, by a
slow fire. The chicken ought to produce enough mois-
ture by itself to prevent it from roasting too fast.
Should this be deficient, add a very little stock. After
from thirty to forty minutes turn the fowl over, with the
breast to the bottom of the pot, so that it gets a little
coloured in its turn. The largest fowl takes an hour
and a quarter. When done, remove it on to a dish.
Add a little stock to the brown glaze that adheres to the
stewpan, having previously removed the grease with a
spoon. Pour it round the fowl or into a sauce-boat,
and serve with the fowl.

An excellent way of making a next -day dish out of
roast turkey is one I saw many years ago in a French
restaurant.

Ailerons de Dinde aux Navets.— Take the wing-
bones and a portion of the legs of a roast turkey, and
divide them into reasonable -sized pieces. Take some
cold stock which has been already well flavoured with
vegetables, and add a little more onion, cut fine. Stew
by the side of the stove till the meat is tender, not
broken away. Add a good, large quantity of turnips,

DECEMBER 153

cut into small dice, and a very small amount of burnt
sugar, pepper, and salt. Stew all together till the tur-
nips are quite cooked (which depends a good deal on the
quality of the turnips) and the stock reduced. Serve in
a hash dish. The whole can also be cooked in a small
fireproof casserole, and served in that, with a clean nap-
kin round it. The excellence of this dish depends on
the goodness of the stock and very slow cooking.

Raw Liver of Chickens, chopped up with a little
bacon fat and fried, then put onto toast with pepper and
salt, is a good breakfast dish or savoury.

JANUARY, 1899

Difficulties of growing Daphne indica — Journey last year to Ireland
— Cutting down and re -planting trees — Apples — Skimmed milk
— Manure heaps — Winter Honeysuckle — Botanical Gardens in
Dublin — Botticelli's drawings — Tissot's Bible — Rippingille's
patent stove — Blue flowers — ' Snowdrop-time ' — ' The Sun-chil-
dren's Budget' — Floral notes from ' The Scotsman' — Receipts.

January 5th. — After a white frost in the morning,
we have had a day which, except for its shortness, we
should be satisfied with and think beautiful in early
spring. These mild, sunny winter days do great harm
in prematurely forcing growth, but I know few things
which it would be more difficult to wish non-existent.
They make up to me for so many of our winter trials —
fog and cold and darkness. I would not change them
for the 'sunny south,' where sunshine is a right, while
here it comes as a most gracious gift — all the more
appreciated because it appears unexpectedly and lasts
such a short time.

I have a plant of Daphne indica, one of my favourite
winter flowers, in my greenhouse now. It is in flower
and smelling deliciously, but does not look at all satis-
factory, although it was only bought last year. It was
put out of doors last summer, as it ought to be, but was
allowed to get dry. It made no growth ; it is leggy,
drawn up, and the leaves are yellow, which, with hard-
wooded plants, generally means over-watering in winter.
I have tried for years to grow these Daphnes, but they
are difficult to strike, difficult to grow, and have a quite
extraordinary love of dying without any very obvious

(154)

JANUARY 155

reason. I must devote myself to finding out, if possible,
what the reason is. I see that Mr. Smee, in his book
'My Garden,' says they did the same with him.

I have just gathered three beautiful, full white buds
off a Niphetos Rose in the conservatory next the draw-
ing-room. It is blooming extra early this year.

January 6th. — Fate caused me to go to Ireland about
this time last year. I dreaded the long night journey
and the arrival on the gray winter morning. But were
the steamers far less splendid sea -boats than they are,
and the waves every day as stormy as they sometimes
are, I think it still would be well worth while for any
garden -fancier to visit Ireland in January, if only to
admire and enjoy the luxuriant green of the evergreens
and the beauty of the winter -flowering shrubs. I had
never seen Garry a elllptica in full beauty before. It had
catkins six or seven inches long, flowering from end to
end, one little flower growing out of the other like a
baby chain made with cowslips. The Jasminum nudi-
fiorum was not a flowering branch here and there, as in
England, but one sheet of brilliant yellow flowers. This
beautiful plant is very easy to propagate by laying some
of the branches along the ground and covering them
with earth. In six or seven months they will have made
good root, and can be taken up and planted where de-
sired. One house I saw in the neighbourhood of Dublin
was covered on its southern side with the Clematis cir-
rhosa, or winter -flowering Clematis, from Algiers. The
house was an old one, much frequented by John Wesley
and mentioned in Southey's Life. On one of the thick,
strong walls, inside, was the following inscription
(translated, I believe, from the German) :

The Angels, from their throne on high,
Look down on us with pitying eye,

156 MORE POT-POURRI

That where we are but passing guests
We build such strong and solid nests,
And where we hope to dwell for aye
We scarce take heed a stone to lay.

There is a strong, practical common-sense in the lines
which would have appealed to Wesley's instincts.

I saw at Howth a beautiful plant of the Desfontainea
spinosa, with its foliage so like the Holly and its hand-
some flowers in the form of a tube, bright scarlet, tipped
with yellow. This I had never seen flowering before,
and one is not likely to come across it except under cir-
cumstances as favourable as those which belong to the
Irish climate or to the west coast of Lancashire and
Scotland. It seems almost a platitude to say that it is
worth while going to Ireland to see the great beauty of
the Irish Yew, one of the forms of the Common Yew,
Taxus fastigiata. In old days in Ireland, I am told, it
was called the Florence Court Yew, from Florence Court,
where it was raised from seed about 1780. Seeds of this
variety produce for the most part only the Common
Yew, though some vary in form and tint. All the
plants in cultivation are of the female sex, according to
London.

Whatever may be the climatic disadvantages of Ire-
land, such as sunlessness and damp, the air remains
clear and pure, the soil is unexhausted, and it is free
from many of the agricultural difficulties of other coun-
tries. In the south, at any rate, there are no manufac-
tures, no smoke, no coal-mines, none of those things
which injure the atmosphere in parts of England, and
make the cultivation of vegetables and flowers difficult
or even impossible. As, in the troubles of individuals,
few things help more than sympathy with and an effort
to understand the trials of others, so it is, I think,
among nations. If Ireland could turn her attention to

JANUARY 157

the trials England has gone through at various epochs
of her history, of a kind which Ireland, through the
very nature of circumstances, has escaped, there would
be less of that one-sided judgment which inclines to
think that all the woes of Ireland are peculiarly her own,
yet solely due to the rule of the English. Troubles and
difficulties come to all nations alike, and certainly Eng-
land herself is in no way exempt. Witness, for in-
stance, the terrible misery produced by the introduction
of machinery, the cotton famines, and even the legisla-
tion of recent days which stopped the importation of
rags for fear of the cholera. Let those who care for a
vivid picture of such times read an old, forgotten novel
by Benjamin Disraeli, written in the early part of this
reign and called 'Sybil.'

During a short excursion into the country by rail, I
was shocked to see how the trees, already less plentiful
than they ought to be, proclaimed that sure sign of ne-
glect— they were almost invariably covered with Ivy.
This beautiful semi -parasitical plant is very picturesque,
and many people have a sentimental love for it from its
greenness in winter ; but it destroys the trees, and,
though it may hasten the end of very old trees to cut the
Ivy down suddenly, it should always be killed on young
trees — by cutting it through the stem at the base and
allowing it to perish and fall away. I am told that one
of the curious effects of the last Land Act is that the
proprietors of land imagine they have an unlimited
right to cut down their trees, without considering the
evil effects this will have on the future climate and
wealth of their country. As it is, Ireland has been far
too much deprived of her forests in the past, and I, with
the tyranny of one who imagines that she understands
everybody's affairs better than they do themselves,
should make the cutting down of trees penal. The wise

i58 MORE POT-POURRI

old Dutch settlers at the Cape understood this subject
well. They made a law which enforced that every man
who cut down one tree should plant two in its stead.
Everybody who has a little plot of land should never
fail every autumn to plant some acorns, beech -nuts,
chestnuts, etc. Many trees will also strike from cuttings
in spring, notably all the Willow tribe, which grow the
moment they are stuck into the ground. If I were a
young Irishman, I should delight in thus renewing the
woods and copses of my country. We know how the
Irish love the soil, and the feeling is not badly expressed
in this little poem, which I copied from an English
newspaper :

Often I wish that I might be,

In this divinest weather,
Among my father's fields — ah me!

And he and I together.

Below the mountains, fair and dim,

My father's fields are spreading:
I'd rather tread the sward with him

Than dance at any wedding.

Oh, green and fresh your English sod,

With daisies sprinkled over,
But greener far were the fields I trod

That foamed with Irish clover.

Oh, well your skylark cleaves the blue

To bid the sun good -morrow!
'Tis not the bonny song I knew

Above an Irish furrow.

And often, often, I'm longing still,

In this all -golden weather,
For my father's face by an Irish hill,

And he and I together.

One of the most beautiful colour -effects I saw in Ire-
land was a small lake planted with great clumps of Dog-

JANUARY 159

wood, with its crimson branches beside the bright yellow
of the Golden Willow.

A great deal might be done by a study of the most
suitable Apple trees to grow in Ireland. There seemed
to me no reason why they should not do as well there as
in Herefordshire or Normandy, but I have been since
told that the want of sun does interfere with their ripen-
ing. This, however, only means that extra study must
be given as to which kinds should be planted. The chief
requirements of Apple trees are slight pruning in the
winter and tying round the stem in October a band of
sticky paper, to prevent the female moth, who has no
wings, from crawling up and laying her eggs in the
branches, to come to life the following spring and devour
leaves and blossoms. Apples are most excellent, whole-
some food. An Apple is quite as nourishing as a Potato,
and a roast Apple, with brown sugar, is a far more pal-
atable dinner for a sick child. Apples very likely might
be plentiful in seasons when Potatoes did badly, and in
districts near to markets they would fetch a much more
fancy price. The following I must have copied out of
some old book or newspaper : ' Chemically, the Apple
is composed of vegetable fibre, albumen, sugar, gum,
chlorophyll, malic acid, gallic acid, lime, and much
water. Furthermore, the Apple contains a larger per-
centage of phosphorus than any other fruit or vegetable.
This phosphorus, says the "Family Doctor,77 is admir-
ably adapted for renewing the essential nervous matter,
lethicin, of the brain and spinal cord. It is perhaps for
the same reason, rudely understood, that old Scandina-
vian traditions represent the Apple as the food of the
gods, who, when they felt themselves to be growing
feeble and infirm, resorted to this fruit for renewing
their powers of mind and body. Also the acids of the
Apple are of great use for men of sedentary habits whose

i6o MORE POT-POURRI

livers are sluggish in action, these acids serving to elimi-
nate from the body noxious matters which, if retained,
would make the brain heavy and dull, or bring about
jaundice or skin eruptions, and other allied troubles.
Some such experience must have led to our custom of
taking Apple sauce with roast pork, rich goose, and like
dishes. The malic acid of ripe Apples, either raw or
cooked, will neutralise any excess of chalky matter en-
gendered by eating too much meat. It is also the fact
that such fresh fruit as the Apple, the Pear, the Plum,
when taken ripe and without sugar, diminish acidity in
the stomach, rather than provoke it. Their vegetable
salts and juices are converted into alkaline carbonates,
which tend to counteract acidity. A ripe, raw Apple is
one of the easiest vegetable substances for the stomach
to deal with, the whole process of its digestion being
completed in eighty -five minutes. Gerarde found that
the "pulpe of roasted Apples mixed in a wine quart of
faire water, and labored together until it comes to be as
Apples and ale — which we call lambes-wool — never fail-
eth in certain diseases of the raines, which myself hath
often proved, and gained thereby both crownes and
credit. The paring of an Apple cut somewhat thick,
and the inside whereof is laid to hot, burning, or run-
ning eyes at night, when the party goes to bed, and is
tied or bound to the same, doth help the trouble very
speedily, and contrary to expectations — an excellent
secret." '

Many people must have asked themselves how, in the
old days long ago, before the Potato came from America,
even the sparse population of Ireland fed itself. I feel
no doubt that the good monks who brought the art of
illuminating and of making the lovely old carved crosses,
also grew their vegetables, and did not find the climate
unfavourable. Probably, however, no other vegetable

JANUARY 161

will ever now take the place, as an article of food, of the
much-loved Potato; nor is this in any way to be desired.
Curiously enough, the other day a great London physi-
cian remarked to me, quite independently of Ireland and
its troubles, that in his estimation the ideal food for
the human race was Potatoes and skimmed or separated
milk, all the nourishing properties of milk being there,
the cream containing nothing but the fat, which stout
people are better without. It is quite curious how few
even educated people know or believe this. Skimmed or
separated milk is constantly thrown away as useless, or
given to the pigs ; whereas it is very much better for
adults than new milk, if they are eating other foods.

Modern science has made it quite easy, by using pre-
ventives in time, to keep down the Potato disease ;
but, in spite of all this, certain losses of crops are sure
to occur, and the all -important thing is to cultivate the
vegetables which would probably succeed best in the
mild, wet autumns so dangerous to the Potato crop.

Where land and manure are forthcoming, seeds —
which should be of the best — represent the principal
outlay in the growing of vegetables. It is much more
prudent to make many sowings in succession than to
sow a great quantity at once. It is said that a Cabbage
may grow anywhere and anyhow, that it will thrive on
any soil, and that the seed may be sown every day in the
year. All this is nearly true, and proves that we have a
wonderful plant to deal with, and that it is one of man's
best friends. Linnasus, the great botanist, mentions
that he found it the only vegetable growing on the bor-
ders of the Arctic Circle. The Cabbage has one persis-
tent plague only, and that is club or anbury, for which
there is no direct remedy or preventive known ; and the
best indirect way of fighting the enemy is our old friend
elbow-grease, or hard work. The crop should constantly

162 MORE POT-POURRI

be moved ; never grown twice in the same place, either
as a seed-bed or planted out, without well digging or
tilling the ground, putting it to other uses and well ma-
nuring it. All the Cabbage tribe are great consumers,
hence the need for abundant manuring. Wherever there
are manure heaps near houses or stables, or in farm-
yards, it is very desirable to sink a tub in the ground on
the lowest side of the heap, where the manure has a ten-
dency to drain, cutting out a nick in the tub to guide in
the liquid, which can be constantly emptied out with a
can. This liquid makes very valuable nourishment for
young vegetables, pot -plants, and, in fact, all garden
produce — strength in youth being naturally a great help
to the whole crop. Besides its usefulness, this prevents
the untidy wasting of a manure heap.

I am very ignorant of Irish affairs in general, but I
listened with extreme interest to all that I could hear of
the cooperative movement now being carried out by so
many farmers in Ireland. I have since kept myself
informed in the matter by taking in that excellent
little weekly paper ' The Irish Homestead.' Mr. William
Lawler, in a long poem in the 'London Year -Book' for
1898, begins a paragraph on Ireland, of which the first
lines, at any rate, do not inappropriately express my
wishes and my hopes for the cooperation of Irish
industries :

Oh, Ireland, when your children shall abate
Their love of captious things to study great ;
When you shall let your aspirations lie
Far less in Statecraft than in Industry ;

Then shall your people prosper and advance.

A charming shrub, and new to me, is Escallonia
pterocladon, which I saw growing on the walls of a

JANUARY 163

house in Ireland ; it was covered in this midwinter time
with white flowers rather like a large Privet.

I saw a pretty dinner -table decoration consisting of
a quantity of Jasminum midiflorum, picked and put in
small glasses with leaves from greenhouse plants. Also
an effective decoration was of Geranium flowers (Pelar-
goniums, red or pink) , arranged in saucers full of moss
and — in between these — narrow, pointed glasses with
branches of pink Begonias. A little winter-flowering
Begonia, called Gloire de Lorraine, has lately come into
fashion. What a term for a flower ! But it is true, and
plants of this Begonia make a charming table decoration
at a time of year when flowers are scarce. They look
best growing in pots. Roman Hyacinths in glasses
could be placed between, and pink shades used for the
candles ; or, for a small table, one plant in the middle
would be enough. The colour, the growth, the shape
of the leaves, all make it charming. I do not yet know
if it is difficult to grow, as I have only lately bought a
plant.

I did not see it in Ireland, but a shrub that should
never be omitted from any garden, small or large, is
Lonicera fragrantissima. It begins to flower in January,
and continues through February and March. Like
every flower or shrub I know, a little care — such as
pruning and mulching — improves its flowering powers.
I had it here in a neglected state in a shrubbery for
years. I only knew its pretty green leaves, and never
guessed what it was or its early -flowering qualities.
But my gardening ignorance in those days was supreme.

In spite of the time of year, I had pleasant days in
Dublin at the College Botanical Garden, and also at
Glasnevin, the 'Kew of Dublin.' The little Irises, Sty-
losa alba and speciosa, were flowering well. They must
be starved ; for if their foliage is good, it means no

164 MORE POT-POURRI

flowers. Many kinds of Hellebores were coming into
bloom, some of which I had never seen before. The
warm, damp winters are very favourable to January-
flowering plants, and we can scarcely expect to copy
them in Surrey. The rather rare and interesting
Daphne blagayana was growing to a great size, and cov-
ered with flowers, at Glasnevin. Mr. Robinson describes
it as a 'beautiful, dwarf Alpine shrub of easy growth.'
I have not found it at all easy ; in fact, two out of the
three plants I had have died, and the third looks rather
ill. But I think I tried to grow it too much in the sun;
it also wants pegging down every year after flowering.

In a country house in Ireland, I saw last year for the
first time the reproductions, sanctioned by the Berlin
Government, of Botticelli's illustrations of Dante. I
never knew before that such things existed, or that out-
line book -illustration of that kind was so old. The
original drawings had belonged to Lord Ashburnham's
collection, and we in England allowed them to be bought
at his sale by the German Government for 25,0001. — an
unfortunate result of the law, which never allowed the
authorities either of the Print room in the British Mu-
seum or of the National Gallery to keep any money in
hand. These drawings are curious rather than very
beautiful, and many of them are unfinished. In the
illustrations of Hell and Purgatory, Botticelli glories in
detail ; but the ' Paradiso' is left almost entirely to the
imagination. Dante and Beatrix surrounded by a circle,
he himself appearing often blinded by the rays of light,
the whole surrounded by more circles ; this is all he
seems to have dared attempt.

In this same house, I was able to turn from these
lineal illustrations of the fifteenth century, with their
delicate, though meagre, draughtsmanship, to the latest
and richest of modern illustrations, the finest colour-

JANUARY 165

printing that France has been able to produce — the
Tissot Bible. It was not otherwise than satisfactory to
realise that, however much art may have in some re-
spects deteriorated, these illustrations, artistically and
mechanically, surpassed those particular drawings of the
Middle Ages, though the comparison is an unfair one.
It would be immensely interesting to know what will be
thought of this Tissot Bible in a hundred years.

January 6th. — I always order all the kitchen garden
seeds during January. My method is this — the gardener
marks Button's list, and then brings it to me to alter or
add to it any out-of-the-way vegetable. It is most im-
portant to go through the catalogues, and order seeds
early in this month. This enables you to get first
choice, and you are then prepared for any kind of
weather, and can sow early if desirable. Also it is easy
to make up omissions later on, while still not too late.
For all the flower seeds that are the result of careful cul-
tivation— such as Sweet Peas, Mignonette, Asters, Sal-
piglossis, and so on — the great nurserymen cannot, of
course, be surpassed in excellence. But for small people
who grow a variety of flowers they are very expensive,
as they only sell large packets of seeds, have few things
out of the common, and hardly any interesting peren-
nials at all. I said before and continue to say that, for
all uncommon seeds, there is one man without any rival
so far as I know, and that is Mr. Thompson, of Ipswich.
His catalogue alone is most descriptive and instructive.
It is the only catalogue I know arranged simply and
alphabetically, with a column telling whether the plants
are hardy or half-hardy, tender or perennial, greenhouse,
stove, etc. It also is the only catalogue which gives the
approximate height that the plant ought to reach when
grown to perfection. But, of course, this varies im-
mensely, as he says himself, with the character of the

166 MORE POT-POURRI

soil and situation in which they are cultivated, especially
if grown in pots. With this list and a careful reference
from the things named to the more detailed accounts in
the ' English Flower Garden' or in Johnson's 'Gardener's
Dictionary,' the requirements of all the plants that are
grown in English gardens can be arrived at. The books
will tell you better than the catalogue which are the
things best worth growing from seed. But a certain
amount of experience and natural intelligence can never
be left out of this kind of study. Mr. Thompson is also
exceedingly obliging about procuring the seeds of cer-
tain wild plants which may not be in his catalogue, but
which are very desirable to grow in rather large gardens
where there is room, such as Tussilago fragrans and Iris
fwtidissima. What amateurs find most difficult in ar-
ranging herbaceous borders— even more difficult than
colour itself— is to acquire sufficient knowledge of plants
to judge of their strength and robustness, and, above
all, of their relative height. Putting Mr. Robinson
aside, the only book I know that is full of instruction,
particularly in this respect, is the one I named before
with great appreciation, ' The Botanic Garden,' by B.
Maund.

Gardeners and amateurs who are really interested in
the subject are beginning to discover that to grow many
plants successfully, especially in light sandy or gravelly
soils, you must grow them from seed in the same air and
soil in which they are expected ultimately to succeed.
For this you must have three or four small pieces of
ground given up to the purpose — some dry, some wet,
some sunny, some shady, and which will require nothing
but weeding and thinning. Seed -sowing, like all other
planting, requires a great deal of thought and considera-
tion. Some grow up in a few days and, every seed having
germinated, require much thinning, however much you

JANUARY 167

may imagine you have sown thinly enough. Some seed-
lings will transplant perfectly, and not suffer at all in
the move ; others must be sown in place at all risks. One
seed-bed is required that can be left entirely alone for
(say) two years, except for just breaking with a hand-
fork and weeding, as some seeds germinate very slowly.
Where this is known to be the case, with large foreign
seeds it is well before sowing to soak them for twenty-
four hours in warm water and a little oil — or even to
puncture the hard skin, as with Cannas. For instance,
I shall certainly soak the seeds of the little Zucche, a
kind of Vegetable Marrow that I brought from Florence
last year, as it is a plant that in England has to do
much growth in a short time, and it is desirable to get it
well grown on in good time to plant out at the end of
May. The exact time of putting out must depend on
the season, and must be decidedly after that late May
frost which comes every year without fail, and which in
some years does gardens so much harm, though we all
know how this may be guarded against by a little pro-
tection.

I think the multiplicity of nurserymen, small and
great, and the gardeners' sympathy with the trade, have
had much to do with the fact that the sowing of seeds,
except in the case of annuals, has gone so out of fash-
ion. No matter where I go, it is not one garden in a
hundred that has these permanent small nurseries for
seeds or even for cuttings, or a reserve garden as de-
scribed before. And yet I am sure many of the best
perennials cannot be grown at all in a light sandy soil
unless they are grown from seed on the spot, and a great
many more are only to be seen in real perfection if they
are treated as annuals or biennials. The growing of
seeds is a work which an amateur gardener can see to
himself — or, indeed, herself— and I am sure gardening is

168 MORE POT-POURRI

the healthiest occupation in the world, as it keeps one
much out of doors. Instead of lolling indoors in com-
fortable chairs, one moves about, and with the mind
fully occupied all the time.

They sell at the Army and Navy Stores an admirable
little lamp-stove (Rippingille's patent) for heating small
greenhouses. This will keep the frost out of a small
house, and is far easier to manage, for an amateur with
a gardener who goes home at night, than the usual more
expensive arrangement.

There are also small forcing -boxes to put inside a
greenhouse or in a room for bringing on seeds in early
spring.

Greenhouse Cyclamens are always useful, and should
be sown early in the year (February or March) in heat.
They should be grown on steadily under glass all the
summer, and kept well watered, then they will flower all
through the next winter. Mr. Thompson sells Cyclamen
seed of the sweet old-fashioned kind, which is rather
difficult to get from other nurserymen, who all go in for
the giant sizes, and are now spoiling this lovely flower
by doubling it. It is best to grow them every year from
seed ; but if the old plants are sunk out of doors and
kept moist through the summer they flower very well.
I have a large old plant this winter in a hanging basket,
and its appearance is very satisfactory. Some garden-
ers dry the bulbs on a greenhouse shelf ; that also
answers.

I would advise everyone to try and get the old Prince
of Orange Pelargonium. There is nothing like it, but it
is not easy to get, as gardeners do not understand that
it requires to be treated like an ordinary flowering Pelar-
gonium, rather than like the hardier sweet -leaved kind.
It wants well cutting back at the end of the summer,
and then growing on in rather more heat than the ordi-

JANUARY 169

nary sweet -leaved Pelargoniums. This little care and
constantly striking young plants in the summer will
prevent its dying out. Out of the fifteen to twenty
kinds of sweet -leaved Geraniums which I possess, I con-
sider it the most valuable and the best worth having.

Cuttings of the best French Laurestinus, struck in
May and grown on to a small standard, make excellent
filling -up plants for a greenhouse now, and if judi-
ciously pruned back after flowering, and stood out in
half shade all the summer, they are covered with large
white flowers at this time of year. When they get too
large for pots or tubs they can be planted out in shrub-
beries; if a little protected by other shrubs, they flower
as freely as the common one, and the flower, even out of
doors, is larger and whiter.

After marking Sutton's list I mark Thompson's, as
some of the flower seeds are best sown early in January.
The difficulty about sowing seeds early is that they want
care and protection for a long time after sowing and
before they can be put out. We are able to sow the
hardier annuals here by the middle of March, especially
Poppies, Corn-flowers, Love -in -the -Mist, Gypsophila,
etc. I am sure that, in this light soil, the second sowing
in April never does so well for early -flowering annuals.
Autumn things, on the contrary, are best not sown till
May, or they come on too early. I never sow Salpiglos-
sis or Nemesia out of doors and in place till the begin-
ning of May. In favourable weather Sweet Peas may
be sown, like Green Peas, in a trench out of doors very
early in the year.

One of my kind correspondents said she observed I
was not so rich in blue flowers as was desirable, and
named the following (I mean to get all those I do not
already possess) : Commelina ccelestis, Anchusa italica,
A. capensis, A. sempervirens, Parochetus communis, Pha-

170 MORE POT-POURRI

celia campanularia. Commelina codestis does very well
in a dry back garden of a London house. Browallia
elata is a most useful annual, and there is a good picture
of it in Curtis' ' Botanical Magazine.7 Catananche cceru-
lea is an old border perennial, and I have it. Linaria
reticulata is a pretty, small annual; so is L.aureo-pur-
purea and L. Mpartita. Omphalodes lucilice I have tried
to get, but failed, and mean to grow it from seed.

January 8th. — I have read once or twice in the news-
papers that butterflies have been seen from time to time
this mild winter, and now this morning I have caught
sight of one of these press butterflies, a beautiful
large yellow one, floating over the field as if it were
summer.

To-day we have been sowing, in shallow ridges in our
most favoured border, two or three kinds of early Green
Peas. How this kind of thing draws the seasons to-
gether ! I dare say we have much that is disagreeable
before us ; still, when these Peas are ready, it will be
leafy June, and spring will be over.

January 9th.— The Iberis that ornaments French cot-
tage windows, and that I called ' Oibraltarica ' in the first
book, is not that at all, but I. sempervirens . I have one
in the greenhouse that was cut back all the summer and
potted up in October. It has been in flower three weeks
now, and will go on for a long time. In the spring I
shall cut it well back and plant it out in the reserve
garden. It grows easily from cuttings, and Mr. Thomp-
son, of Ipswich, keeps the seed. It is, of course, not a
choice plant, but it is an attractive and useful one for
those who have not much convenience for forcing on
winter-flowering things in December and January. Like
many of the commoner plants, I have never seen it
grown as a window plant in England, though it would
do well.

JANUARY 171

January 12th. — The first little Aconites are out to-
day! This is early. Going through January without
cold is rather despairing. I find that even in this dry
soil the Aconites do much better under evergreens and
at the edges of shrubs than in the borders which are
manured and mulched. The borders are too good for
them, and they increase better if not disturbed. I men-
tion this, as I was so stupidly long in finding it out
myself. The more the uneducated gardening mind cares
about a plant, the more it turns to manure and mulch-
ing; but in many cases it does more harm than good —
notably with Aconites, Daffodils, Scillas, etc. What they
all want is moisture and protection at the growing time.
Drying ever so much in the summer does them good
rather than harm, and they never do well in a bed that
is hosed or watered to suit other things. With the
Aconites, our first outdoor friends, come a few Snow-
drops. They have never been planted here in any quan-
tity, and have a tendency to diminish rather than in-
crease: perhaps mice are especially fond of them. lam
more than ever determined to plant a large quantity
next year ; enough, if possible, for me and the mice too.
This little Snowdrop poem has such an echo of ' The
Baby-seed Song' — a great favourite in my other book —
that I copy it out of a recent ' Pall Mall Gazette' :

SNOWDROP-TIME

'It's rather dark in the earth to-day,'

Said one little bulb to his brother;
'But I thought that I felt a sunbeam ray —
We must strive and grow till we find the way ! '

And they nestled close to each other.
Then they struggled and toiled by day and by night
Till two little Snowdrops, in green and white,
Rose out of the darkness and into the light,
And softly kissed one another.

172 MORE POT-POURRI

In the greenhouse have now been put the first pots
of the lovely double Prunus, with its delicate whiteness
of driven snow; no plant forces better. I said this, or
something like it, before. Never mind ; with some
plants it is worth while to repeat myself. In the coun-
try I do not now care to grow India-rubber plants or
Aspidistras, except to give away. They only remind me
of towns, and take a good deal of room.

I have in the greenhouse several pots of a white
Oxalis — I do not know its distinguishing name — with a
long growth of its lovely fresh green leaves, which can
be picked and mixed with delicate greenhouse flowers, as
they last well in water. It has a white flower in spring,
and the whole plant is very like an improved version of
our Wood Sorrel, Oxalis acetosella. The more I look at
my beautiful old 'Jacquin' Oxalis book, the more I feel
how much interesting greenhouse cultivation is to be
had out of growing several of the best Oxalises. Almost
all are natives of the Cape of Good Hope, which means
easy greenhouse cultivation, and winter or early spring
flowering. I shall certainly try to increase my stock,
though one very seldom sees any of them catalogued.

Tradescantias, that I used to grow in pots for Lon-
don, I find equally useful here. The common green one
is all but hardy, and flourishes outside by the green-
house wall. This, picked and put into a flat glass, grows
without roots in the water in the most graceful manner
for weeks together. A few bits of flower stuck in — such
as, for instance, the Sparmatia africana, which continues
to flower better if constantly picked down to where the
fresh buds are forming — and you have a lovely winter
flower arrangement at once: grace of form in the grow-
ing leaves, contrast in the starry white flowers, colour in
the brilliant yellow shot with red stamens. 'Munstead'
flower -glasses, as designed by Miss Jekyll (very cheap,

JANUARY 173

and all kinds of useful shapes) , are still to be got at
Green & Nephews, Queen Victoria street, London, E.G.

The variegated gold -coloured Tradescantia and T.
discolor are useful and pretty, and should never be
allowed to die out or get shabby. They grow so easily
at every joint that they are to greenhouses what certain
weeds are to gardens.

Mr. Smee, in his 'My Garden,' recommends Forenia
asiatica as a good stove -plant. I have not yet got it,
but mean to do so.

January 13th. — A tall greenhouse grass called Cype-
rus laxus I find easy to grow. It is very pretty picked
in winter and stuck into a bottle behind some short
pieces of bright -coloured flowers. It looks refined, and
if against or near white paint or a white wall its shad-
ows are pretty, thrown by the lamp through the long
evenings. A greenhouse evergreen called Rhododendron
jasminiflorum is worth all trouble. It is in bloom now,
sweet and graceful, and not at all common. All these
half-hardy hard -wooded plants I find rather difficult to
keep in health, but I am going to pay much more atten-
tion to their summer treatment. They want to go out
for a month or two ; but, to prevent their getting dry,
they must be either sunk in cocoanut fibre, or sur-
rounded by moss, or covered with straw. If sunk in the
earth, worms are apt to get in. I think they are best
replaced towards the middle of August into the cool
house, where they can be watched. Sinking the small
pot into a larger with some moss between is the best
help of all. There is no fun in growing only the things
everyone can grow, and nothing vexes me like seeing a
plant which came quite healthy from a nurseryman, and
in a year not only has not grown, but looks less well
than when it first came.

The Choisya ternata cut back in May is flowering

i74 MORE POT-POURRI

splendidly. I wish I had room for eight pots of them
instead of only two. There are several pots with Epi-
phyllum truncatum in full flower. The flowers are very
pretty when seen close, and look well gathered and put
into small glasses ; but the colour is a little metallic
and magentary. Most greenhouses have them, but few
people manage to flower them well.

Ficus repens is a little, graceful, easily cultivated
greenhouse climber, which hangs prettily in baskets or
creeps along stones in a greenhouse border.

Every year we grow various Eucalyptuses from seed
— some for putting out, and some for retaining in pots —
especially the very sweet Eucalyptus citriodora, which is
in the greenhouse now and is a great help, as it looks
flourishing ; while the sweet Verbenas will have their
winter rest, as they are deciduous, whatever one does —
at least, so far as I have been able to manage up to now.
But I am not sure that autumn cuttings, grown on in
heat, might not remain growing at any rate for part of
the winter. Life is always rather unbearable to my lux-
ury-loving nature without Lemon -scented Verbena, and
I miss it so in the finger-bowls at dinner, partly because
those few leaves supply what one wants without much
trouble. But a little bunch of Violets carefully arranged,
and one Sweet Geranium leaf, especially the Prince of
Orange, make a combination that pleases everyone, and
they are always at hand at this time of year.

January 14th. — In the January number of a charm-
ing little periodical called 'The Sun -children's Budget,'
intended to teach young children botany easily and
amusingly, there was an account and an illustration of a
rare English wild flower, Pceonia corallina. The coloured
print of it gives the idea that the red may not be of a
very pretty hue ; but this would not matter, as the chief
charm of the plant is the seed -pod. This slightly re-

JANUARY 175

sembles in shape the seed -pod of that other charming
wild flower, the Iris fatidissima, also much less grown
than it should be in semi -wild, damp places, with its
beautiful coral -red seed and strange -shaped, gaping
capsule, so decorative in a vase in winter. The seed-
covered branching growth of Montbretias mixes well
with the twiggy flower -stems of the Statice (or Sea Lav-
ender). 8. latlfolia is the best for winter decoration.
To return to Pceonia corallina. I have been able to get
some plants from Mr. Thompson. He says it is a greedy
feeder, that the seeds germinate slowly, and that the
plant grown from seed is long in coming to its flowering
time. It flowers in May and June, and in the autumn
the brown, downy pods open along their inner side and
display the seeds. It seems to be a most rare wild
flower, growing on an island in the Severn. Sir William
Hooker says it is to be found at Blaize Castle, near Bris-
tol. Gerarde mentions it, and says that he found it in a
rabbit warren at Southfleet in Kent. But in my edi-
tion the editor, Thomas Johnson, is sceptical, and adds
severely : ' I have been told that our author himself
planted that Peionie there, and afterwards seemed to
find it there by accident ; and I do believe it was so, be-
cause none before or since have ever seen or heard of its
growing wild in any part of this kingdom.' The origin
of the botanical word 'Paeonia' is from one Paeon, the
physician of the Olympian gods, who used the leaves
for healing, notably in the case of Pluto when he was
wounded by Hercules.

January 16th. — Last January someone sent me a cut-
ting out of ' The Scotsman' ; it was called ' Floral Notes
from the West Coast of Ross -shire.' The writer begins
by showing himself extremely proud, as is only natural,
of flowering his Lilium giganteum, nine feet high and
with nineteen perfect blooms on it. He also praises,

176 MORE POT-POURRI

what I recommend to everybody, the biennial Michauxia
campanuloides. He says everyone used to exclaim on
seeing it, 'Oh! what a charming white Lily!' The only
way, as I stated before, is to grow it from seed. Wat-
sonia marginata, according to him, is a lovely plant
which in Scotland can be classed as a hardy perennial.
It a good deal resembles the Sparaxis pulcherrima ; in
fact, much more so than it resembles the other Wat-
sonias, which, he says, are shy bloomers. He speaks of
another little favourite of mine, Linaria repens alba, and
describes it — as I have always done — by saying it re-
minds him strongly of a Lily -of -the -Valley. It is very
easy to grow, and well worth having. It is seldom found
in flower lists, and he says he got his from Amos Perry,
of Winchmore Hill, Herts. He mentions a pure white
Iris Jccempferi in full bloom, and below it a mixed mass
of those new Tigridias (Aurea and Lilacina grandiflora)
and brilliant blue Commelina. This mixture was hard
to beat. Also the trimming round the base of the Mi-
chauxia, already described, consisted of a variety of
Platycodons or Japanese balloon -plants, in different
shades of blue, mixed with white Swainsonia. All these
last-named, with the exception of the Swainsonia, came
from Roozen's. Then he says : ' I think I have told you
all that I can remember as being particularly good in
1896.' I thought he gave such a creditable list that it
might interest others who did not see ' The Scotsman' —
good combinations being so difficult to get in herbaceous
and bulb gardens. He goes on to say: 'The most strik-
ing flowers grown here in 1897 were a collection of Calo-
chorti. I had tried them previously on a very small
scale, with very small success ; but, knowing them to be
quite a specialty of the Messrs. Wallace of Colchester, I
corresponded with them, and they sent me a collection
of Calochortus bulbs which they thought would suit, and

JANUARY 177

suit they certainly did, for they gave us the very greatest
pleasure and were the envy and admiration^ of everyone
else who saw them.' He put his Calochorti into a bor-
der with all the best mixed make-up soils he could find.
Planting them in November, they flowered the following
June. The only trouble from which they suffered in
their infancy was slugs. But slices of Potato and Tur-
nip acted as counter-attractions, and the plague was
stayed. He says : ' There were about seven varieties
of the Calochorti, and I don't think that in their own
Calif ornian forests they could have done much better.
Anything more perfectly fascinating than a vaseful of
Calochorti it would be impossible to grow in a British
garden ; and they last such a long time in water.' He
names, without describing them, two other favourites,
the first of which I have, Dracocephalum argumense and
Vancouveria hexandra, 'Tooth gems in their way.' He
goes on ' For those who are fond of rare Tulips, I must
not forget to recommend Tulipa Kaufmanniana, which I
bloomed for the first time last spring, and which is quite
equal in its way to Tulipa Greigi and several other Tulip
species which I have had from time to time from my
aforementioned Dutch friends. After the Calochorti,
perhaps a bed of Ixias from the same Haarlem firm was
the next best thing my garden produced in 1897. I find
Ixias the very easiest plants to grow, and this year they
were all but as good as I have ever seen them in Italian
gardens. So marvellously brilliant were they as to be
quite dazzling to the eyes on a sunny day. They have
only one fault; viz., that, after flowering in June and
ripening off, they begin their next year's growth in Oc-
tober, and so their young leaves are rather apt to get
punished by the black frosts of spring. The fact is,
they suffer from insomnia, and so by rights they should
be lifted in July and made to sleep, in spite of them-

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selves, on a dark shelf till planted again in March ; but
they do wonderfully well here even if left to take care of
themselves.' It is quite a relief to hear this wonderfully
successful amateur has difficulties with Lilies. All the
same, the description he gives of his own seems to me
very like success. He speaks of the White Martagon
(a Lily I am now trying to grow) and lAlium testaceum
as being great favourites with him. He was struck at
Torridon by another plant which he says does so much
better there than with him ; viz., the scarlet and green
Alstrcemeria psittacina. The clumps were almost as
strong as sheaves of oats. 'I have a new variety,' he
writes, 'of this parrot flower — a deep crimson one —
which was very good here at the end of November.' But
if I go on I shall end by quoting the whole of this most
interesting gardening letter. I hope the anonymous
writer, who dates from Inverewe Poolewe, where the
climate must be such as to make any gardener jealous,
will forgive this long quotation extracted by a sincere
admirer, though unknown fellow -gardener.

Since writing the above I have been sent another
letter from a January 'Scotsman' of this year (1899).
The opening sentence is so original and suggestive for
anyone who has a garden capable of being easily ex-
tended that I quote it as it stands : ' My garden having
become quite filled up, I have for the last few years
taken to enclosing bits of rough ground inside the
policies (or the domain, as they would call it in Ire-
land) , and have gone somewhat enthusiastically into
shrubs. I have now three of these small enclosures,
and each one seems more or less to suit some particular
class of plant. My "Fantasy" is hard and gravelly,
and suits the Genista and Citisus tribes very well. My
"Riviera" is very sunny and with good soil, and in
it I grow my rarest exotics ; and "America," my latest

JANUARY 179

creation, being more peaty, damp, and shady, like a
wee bit of the backwoods, has been given over to the
so-called American plants — Rhododendrons, Azaleas,
Andromedas, Kalmias, Heaths, and, besides these,
Magnolias, Bamboos, and very many other things ; so
many, indeed, that besides the sixty Azaleas which fill
a bed in the centre, there are a hundred and seventy
kinds of rare plants in it, gathered from most of the
Temperate portions of our globe ; and, with one or
two exceptions, I must say they appear very promis-
ing, considering my little "America" was only colonized
in April last.' He then details his triumphs: 'My
greatest this summer was my flowering abundantly the
rare and beautiful Chilian shrub, the Crinodendron
hookeri. I got it from Mr. Smith, at Newry, and
planted it in my "Riviera" in the spring of 1897; it
stood last winter well, and early in June it blossomed
freely. We have but few shrubs with crimson flowers,
the blooms of so many of them being either white or
yellow. But the Crinodendron is a grand exception.
Its nearest neighbours on each side of it consist of
plants of the Abutilon vitifolium and Carpenteria cali-
fornica, both of which stood the winter ; and the
former, from having come on so well, will be bound
to flower next season. It has a great name now, espe-
cially in Ireland, for hardiness and for its beautiful
blossoms. I possess in my "Riviera" a number of
things, of which I know little or nothing, with queer
names, such as Coprosmas, Callistemons, Aristotelias,
Pittosporums, Raphiolepis, Agalmas, Styrax, Indigof-
eras, etc. ; and, in spite of their names, I must say
they look happy.'

As from the other letter, I only extract what seems to
me most interesting : ' I must now tell the contents
of my Azalea bed, already referred to, all of which I got

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from M. Louis van Houtte, of Ghent. There are sixty
plants, in sixty different varieties or species. There are
single and double hardy Ghent Azaleas, and single
Azalea mollis, and double hybrids of Mollis. They
occupy the bed, with the exception of a clump of Phyl-
lostachys viridi glaucescens and Phyllostachys mitis (Bam-
boos) in the centre, and I can truly say there was not a
bad plant or a bad variety among the lot, and everyone
of them was full on arriving. If anyone wants a bril-
liant edging to a Rhododendron bed, let me commend
to them Azaleas Fritz Quihou and Gloria Hundi ; the
former is of an extraordinarily dazzling crimson. Many
people are of the opinion that the flowering season of
Azaleas is short and soon over, but this would not
happen if they got a good selection from M. van Houtte.
I see from my diary that the first Azaleas expanded with
me on May 18th, and they did not finish till July 24th,
so that they lasted more than nine weeks. About the
last to open were the pink and the crimson doubles, Bijou
de Gendbruggen and Louis Aime van Houtte, and the
lovely species Sinensis flore alba only began to expand
on July 16th. For those who like species, Azaleas Occi-
dentalis and Arborescens are both very interesting. . . .
' I have a great love of Heaths, but have not got
many of them. After considerable trouble, I got some
good plants of Erica arborea from Newry, which we had
so much admired on the hillsides of Corsica. They seem
to do very well here, and two of them bloomed this
summer ; but whether they will grow into trees in my
"Riviera, "as they do on the shores of the Mediter-
ranean, I cannot yet tell. Erica australis, Erica medi-
terranea, and the Cornish Heath (E. vagans) are, like the
Hydrangeas, delightful in late autumn, and so is the
white Irish Dabwcia polifolia, of which we can hardly
have too much. .

JANUARY 181

' I have, I think, merely alluded to the Genistas, and
most people know, besides the common yellow, the White
Portugal and the Yellow Spanish so-called Broom, which
is, however, not really a Genista, but a Spartium, though
it looks so like a Broom, and is very showy late in the
season, when the common Broom is over. The low-
growing real Genista hispanica is a very useful little
plant. Those who have not got the Broom with the
crimson lip (G. andreana), nor the cream-coloured
hybrid (G. prcecox) , should not fail to get them both, as
they are an immense acquisition to our hardy flower-
ing shrubs.

'To -day I have been reminded of a nice plant of
Eugenia ugni, a kind of Myrtle which has stood out
some years against the terrace wall of my garden, and
which bloomed and ripened its fruit so well that I have
lately sent a sample of its fragrant berries to a friend in
Switzerland. The scent and flavour remind one of
both Strawberries and Pineapple, with a slight mixture
of Bog Myrtle.' I hope no one will confound this
description of a Scotch garden with what I am able to
do in dry Surrey.*

January 20th. — It is a constant disappointment to
me that I cannot get the Tussilago fragrans, called
Winter Heliotrope, with its delicious fragrant spikes
of flowers, to bloom here. It is quite hardy, and a
weed supposed to grow anywhere, but I never get any-
thing except a few leaves. This, of course, is in conse-
quence of the dryness, the poorness of the soil, and the
want of shade, as it has such a weedy growth I cannot
put it into any good border. It is a distinct loss, not
getting these flowers in midwinter. I should recom-
mend everyone who has a damp corner to try and grow
them. They are not showy, but when picked their
delicious scent will pervade a whole room.

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Rue, which is sometimes grown in kitchen gardens,
though I think seldom used now in cookery, is hardly
ever grown in shrubberies, where it makes in winter a
charming feature. I find few people know that the
French name for the plant is exactly the same as in
English. Some people think the strong odour disagree-
able, but I myself think it delicious. It is very useful
to pick for winter bouquets, and the beautiful gray -blue
of its foliage contrasts well with ordinary evergreens.
If picked hard, that is as good as cutting it back, and
only promotes its growth. It is very easy to grow —
either from cuttings, divisions of the tufts, or seeds.
Dryness, though making it look rather poor in summer,
does it no harm for the next winter. Another plant that
does admirably here in the light soil is Santolina (Lav-
ender Cotton), and should always be grown for its
pretty hoary foliage. It mixes well with some flowers,
and is one of those plants that surprises one by its
absence from any garden.

The lower part of the stage in my larger greenhouse
— I do not mean my little show one near the drawing-
room — has been a veritable widow's cruse for me this
winter. We have constantly had Mushrooms from our
bed, covered with its sheet of corrugated iron, that I
mentioned before.

Lately we have had lots of Button's winter salad,
Tarragon, Chives, etc., Cress — I do not like Mustard —
Rhubarb, and Sea -kale. The Watercress in boxes,
described before, has done admirably in the frame. My
gardener is getting extremely clever at forcing things
in this way through the winter. Early in this month,
lunching with a neighbour, we had an excellent dish —
the best I have ever seen — of forced green Asparagus.
I think next year I must try and grow this too.

In my opinion, Leeks are far too little used in general

JANUARY 183

by English people. Most English cooks only use them
as a flavouring for soup or boiled beef. They are really
excellent stewed, and very good raw, cut up with beet-
root, especially if not the large, coarse kind recom-
mended in most of the English catalogues. The Long
Winter Leek (Poireau long d'Hiver de Paris) is quite
distinct from all other kinds. It is very delicate, quite
small, withstands the winter well, and is the only kind
that produces those fine, very long, slender Leeks which
are seen in bundles early in the year in the Central
Market at Paris. In France, gardeners help nature a
little by earthing up the plants while they are growing.
It can be chopped up fine with other salad herbs when
Chive tops are not to be got unless they are forced. The
wild Leek (the Allium ampeloprasum) still grows, I
believe, in parts of Wales, and is, as to form and
tint, beautiful and decorative. It is, of course, well
known as the Welsh emblem.

January 27ih. — I have on my flower table a shrub-
by Begonia, in a pot, with small, pointed, spotty leaves
and hanging white flowers. They are easily reared
from seed, and I do think they grow so beautifully and
can be pruned into such lovely shapes ! They are far
more beautiful than those great, flat, floppy, opulent,
tuberous -rooted ones that flower in the summer. The
parent of my plant (mossy green leaves, spotted silvery
white) must have been called B. alba picta.

The white Arums, which were laid on their side all
the summer in the pots and well dried, are handsomer
plants, and throwing up more flowers than I have ever
had before when they were planted out in summer.

In this dry, frosty weather we thin and prune out the
shrubberies. Every plant is given a fair chance or else
cut down. Taking all suckers from the Lilacs improves
them immensely. How seldom it is done !

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January 28th. — There is nothing like a date and a
detailed account of the weather for accentuating a gar-
den fact. We have had lately several days of frost, and
we had to-day for luncheon so excellent a green vegeta-
ble that both gardener and cook had immediately to be
interrogated as to details. The gardener said it was
grown from Button's hardy -sprouting Kale called
' Thousand -headed,' and I see in a note to the catalogue
that 'the Borecoles thrive better in poor soil than most
vegetables.' This naturally accounts for their being
good-tasting here. In Vilmorin's list, they are
described as a cattle -feeding plant of large size, and
bearing frost extremely well. The cook informed me
that she had cut the green of the leaf carefully off the
stalk, and then cooked it exactly like Spinach. I give
my cook the credit for cutting it off the stalk, as I had
never suggested it. The result was most satisfactory.

RECEIPTS

An excellent way to improve northern or frozen
game, of which a great deal is now sold, is to lay the
birds in a bath of milk for twenty-four hours, changing
the milk twice. They are then roasted in the ordinary
way, and are excellent.

A good way of cooking potatoes in winter is to steam
them without their skins. Then melt some very good
fresh butter in a small iron saucepan, and to this add
a good lot of onions shredded very fine, and fry till a
good mahogany brown, not black. Put the potatoes in
a very hot fireproof dish, and pour the hot butter and
onions over them just before serving.

Parsnips.— Everybody grows parsnips, so far as I
can make out, and hardly anyone ever eats them ; except
now and then with boiled pork and with salt cod on

JANUARY 185

Good Friday. They are very good in England, as our
mild winters enable us to leave them in the ground,
which makes them much better than if they had been
stored in sand or ashes. Here is a receipt for anyone
who does not dislike parsnips and does like curry : Boil
some fine parsnips whole, without cutting them, wash
and brush them, and put into just enough boiling water
to cover them. Simmer till tender and till the water is
nearly evaporated — about one hour and a half. Tear
the parsnips into fine shreds with two forks. Sprinkle
with cloves and a little dusted sugar. Have prepared
apart a curry sauce. (See p. 252, 'Pot-Pourri' .) Pour
this over the parsnips, warm up together, and serve with
boiled Patna rice in a dish apart.

Mutton Cutlets a la Russe.— Braise the cutlets.
The sauce is made as follows : One stick of horseradish
(scraped), four shallots, one bay -leaf, a little thyme, a
little raw ham (chopped), a little nutmeg, pepper and
salt, one dessertspoonful of sugar, a tablespoonful of
vinegar, the same quantity of sherry, and one ounce of
butter. Simmer it over a slow fire for twenty minutes,
then add a little white sauce, the yolks of two eggs, and
a little cream. Stir over the fire until it begins to sim-
mer ; then pass it through a hair -sieve and spread on
one side of the cutlets. Strew on a little Parmesan
cheese, and brown the cutlets in the oven. Dish them
up with a little good gravy.

Open Apple Tart. — For this it is necessary to have
a small, round, iron plate, flat, with a very narrow rim,
as used abroad. In the country you can have them
made, and in London you can buy them at the good
shops. They must not be made of tin. Line this with
a puff -paste, and have a deep rim of paste all round.
Prepare a compote of good, rich apple, reduced till dry
enough to mix in a small quantity of fresh butter. If

186 MORE POT-POURRI

at all lumpy, the apple must first be passed through a
sieve. Pour this on to the pastry, then peel and cut a
quince into very thin, neat slices. Lay these on the
apple in circles till you nearly reach the middle. Bake
the purte in the oven till the pastry is cooked without
burning. Serve very hot, or quite cold.

FEBRUARY

Mistresses and servants — Difficulty of getting servants — Girls
instead of boys — Registry Offices — The employments that do
not take up characters — Early rising — Baron Humboldt —
Coverings for larders — Blackbeetles — Children's nurses —
Ignorance of young married women — Some natural history
books — Forcing blossoming branches — Horticultural Show —
Letter from San Moritz — Receipts.

Last year, in February, I wrote a little article on
mistresses and servants in the 'Cornhill Magazine.7 It
was called forth by the report of a case in the Divisional
Court which seemed interesting at the time. The point
at issue was whether a servant was entitled to give notice
at any time within the first fortnight of her service,
so as to enable her to leave at the end of the first
month. The judgment did not settle the law of the
case. My friends complained that I more or less put
forth the difficulties of the present day with regard to
mistresses and servants — especially the difficulty of the
insufficient supply of servants — but that I suggested
nothing new by way of a solution. As the question is
one of very general interest, I think I will quote some
part of the article, adding a few practical suggestions
which have occurred to me since.

Servants may, and often do, get into situations which
turn out to be entirely different from what they have
been led to expect. It may be even that they find
themselves in a 'bad' house; or with a drunken mistress;
or, what is still more common with a young girl, under
a drunken cook, whom the mistress still believes in ; or

(187)

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under a foreign man -cook whose manners are disagree-
able to her, but who gets very angry at her insisting on
leaving when he wants to keep her. He then abuses her
to the mistress, who is angry and put out at her wishing
to go, and refuses to give her a character or pass on the
one she received with her. All these, and many similar
cases, are very hard on servants, who, as a rule, cannot
afford to bring the case before the county court judge,
and who would probably have little to adduce as proof,
even if they could ask for help and protection. We all
suffer from the well-known faults of servants, but we
are apt often to forget how much there is to be said on
the other side. With us, it is a case more or less of
expense and inconvenience ; with them, it is their actual
livelihood.

I shall, I believe, be accused of seeing the question
too much from the servants' point of view. But have we
not all from our youth up heard of the selfishness, the
ingratitude, the wastefulness, the idleness of servants ?
And each generation pronounces them to be worse than
they ever were before. I can remember the time when
servants were first expected to be clean, but baths were
not provided ; and to use the bathroom, which was done
on the sly, was thought as great an impertinence as if
they had asked for dessert every day after dinner.

Customs change, but the big fact always remains the
same — that the relation between master and servant is,
and must always be, one of self-interest. Within limits,
each tries to get the best of the bargain. One pays to
command ; the other receives to obey. The most self-
denying Christian principles are of no avail. Carried to
a logical conclusion, these principles would lead to the
Christian mistress doing the work and the idle maid
going to bed; or, the humble Christian servant declaring
that her work was a pleasure, and that she could not

FEBRUARY 189

possibly take her wages. No, we are — on both sides —
just as selfish as we dare be. And this self-interested
bargain between masters and servants can only be
settled on each individual case. The merits on each side
must, according to one of the oldest of symbols, be
placed in the scales, and the noble, majestic, upright
figure of Justice must hold out her arm and adjust the
balance.

We never get beyond this, and it is the only escape
from the greatest of tyrannies — the power, either by
gold or by force, of one human being over another. This
power it will ever be the business of civilisation to rule
and to diminish. This, in our day, is the business, first,
of the master of a house; or, when he has the chance,
of the county court judge.

The temptation to give false or partially false charac-
ters is a very great one to young and kind-hearted
people. As in so many other cases, the public them-
selves are responsible for this — so many people like
being deceived, and look upon truth as naked and
barbaric. If a mistress gives an honest character, not
all praise, in nine cases out of ten the servant fails to
get the place. This state of things is unreasonable and
ridiculous; and if those about to engage a servant would
ask for the chief failing of the person they are going to
admit into their families, they would be better able to
judge if the servant were likely to suit them or not. I
remember, many years ago, being asked if I knew of
a young nurse who was to have every good quality under
the sun. She was to be strong, she was to ask for no
holidays, she was never to leave the children to associate
with the other servants, her temper was to be perfect,
and so on. I wrote back that such a combination of
good qualities as was expected for twenty pounds a year
I had never yet met with in any young mother. A cor-

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responding story is of a lady who wrote to a French
friend for a holiday tutor. He also was to be a
lump of perfection. The Frenchwoman wrote back :
'Je ferai tout mon possible, mais si je trouve ton homme
je Pepouse.'

A wit of fifty years ago used to say: 'I marry my wife
for her money, I engage my footmen for their looks, as
those are the only two things that can possibly be
known beforehand.' As is common enough with a
cynical remark, there is a good deal of truth in this.

Now we come to what I consider to be one of the
greatest changes that has occurred of late years ; viz.,
the extreme facility for women getting employment with-
out any character at all ; that is to say, without any
prying into the private conduct or personal character-
istics of any individual. For example, all shops and
stores, laundries and many other houses of business,
engage their employes from their general appearance and
the account they give of themselves. If they do not do
their work, if they are insubordinate or unpunctual, they
are dismissed on Saturday night — sometimes even with-
out the usual week's notice and without any reason
being assigned. This often appears a great hardship,
but my point is that one of the chief objections to
domestic service is that, from the very start, some sort
of recommendation is required from someone who is
supposed to be in a responsible position. I do not say
this is not necessary, but I do think the custom might
be considerably relaxed, with advantage to everybody.
The usual characters given are often clever skating on
very thin ice, and convey little real knowledge of the
servant's faults or merits. Servants, like other people,
have undoubtedly the defects of their virtues, and the
wise way is to make up our minds what we are prepared
to give up. If we go in for youth and good looks, we

FEBRUARY 191

can scarcely hope for the qualities we may expect to find
in age and ugliness. In considering the merits of a
situation, the more educated mind should not fail to
look at it from the point of view of the servant.

After leaving school, village as well as town girls, in
a great number of cases, are kept at home for a few
years by their mothers. This gives them a love of
freedom and amusement which singularly unfits them
for the discipline of domestic service. It might be a
possible bridging of the difficulty if it became usual for
each family, according to its position, to keep fewer
permanent servants and give, as a matter of course,
more outside help, each of a specialised kind, to be got
from girls who have lately left school, and whose
mothers would probably not at all object to their earn-
ing a little money and doing outside work — let us say,
up to two o'clock. A girl who was a good needlewoman
at school might be used once a week to repair linen, or
to do any other casual mending. I heard lately of a
young housekeeper, tired of boys who did their work
badly, having obtained excellent assistance from a
schoolgirl of sixteen, whom she trained to clean boots,
knives, and lamps every morning. A beginning of this
kind might, I think, greatly increase the much -needed
supply, and, above all, create a means of direct com-
munication between the poor and rich, which is still one
of the great wants of the day, in spite of all the
charitable ladies. Some people would suggest that it
might bring infection into the house ; but I really think
that the risk is no greater than with everything else in
London. There is always a proportion of risk — in the
street, the 'Underground,' the omnibus, the Zoological
Gardens, the bread, the meat, and, above all, the milk.

A proof of the exceeding difficulty that many have in
getting employment is to be seen in the large numbers

i92 MORE POT-POURRI

that exist of those terrible harpies called Registry
Offices, the very maintenance of which depends on
robbing the poor girls who seek employment just at the
moment they can least afford it. I could quote story on
story of how six, seven, or eight shillings are taken
from a country girl without the smallest return to her-
self ; indeed, in some cases they simply retain any
written references which she may have given into their
charge at their request. I believe an effort is being
made to meet this difficulty by an association called
'The Guild of Registries,' and it certainly appears to
be sadly wanted.

A new agency has been lately started on rather
different lines in Derby street, Mayfair, and conducted
by three house -stewards, who have lived many years at
the head of large households. Their idea is that they
are perhaps better judges of the kind of servants apply-
ing for situations than those with less experience can
be. Also they mean to get introductions to clergymen
and the heads of schools all over the country, so as to
help girls from villages who wish to go into service.
The experiment seems to me an interesting one.

Things must still be very wrong when the proportion
of people who keep servants is so very small, and that
of the poor population so very large, and yet we con-
tinually meet with the complaint that servants, espe-
cially under -servants, are so difficult to find.

As we get older, we, most of us, step into shoes
we should have vowed in our youth we never would put
on, and each one in his generation sees some progress
in civilisation which has ruined servants, and feels that
good servants are far more rare and difficult to find than
they were twenty, thirty, or (say) fifty years ago. Good
servants — by which I mean unselfish, devoted human
beings — are never likely to be a great glut in the

FEBRUARY 193

market. But then are extra good, judicious, sensible
masters and mistresses so very common ?

Of all the deadly -dull subjects of conversation among
women, the deadliest is the abuse of servants ; and few
seem to realise that it is practically self-condemnation, as,
in the long run, bad servants mean bad mistresses, or,
at any rate, mistresses with unsympathetic natures and
without the talent to rule firmly but not tyrannically.

When we think of servants' homes and training, and
how their youth has been passed, especially in large
towns, and how they are suddenly brought to face
unaccustomed luxury and high feeding, and to live an
exciting life of society among themselves, the ceaseless
wonder to me always is that servants are as good as
they are, and keep as ' straight ' as they do, more
especially as they are very often set a bad example by
the people they serve. In large households where there
are many — and consequently idle — menservants, keep-
ing up a high standard of morality is hopeless, or at
least very difficult. The constant absence from home
so common to-day is one of the great causes of
unsatisfactory establishments.

Under -servants in moderate -sized houses are the
ones that excite my pity. It is always ' the girl ' who is
to do this and that, the half -up and half-down drudge
who has two or three people who think they have an
absolute right over her ; or ' the boy ' who is to have all
work and no play. It is on the same principle, I
suppose, as the ' fag ' at school. ' I had to do it once,
so now I will make someone else do the same.' Petty
love of power and cruelty is so inherent in human
nature ! As was recounted some time ago in the
' Spectator,' ' I'll learn you to be a toad ! ' — the remark
of a small urchin as, stone in hand, he eyed the
offending reptile.

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One of the many causes of disappointment about
servants is, that those people who treat them with kind-
ness and consideration expect in return more gratitude
than the circumstances admit.

I remember a friend who had been good to a little
Swiss nurserymaid, and reproached her for leaving her
to go to another situation with slightly higher wages.
The girl put out her hands, shrugged her little
shoulders, and said : ' Mon Dieu ! madame, que voulez-
vous ? J'ai quitte ma mere pour cela ! ' How true it
was ! And not only her mother, but her green Swiss
valley, with the beautiful sunlit mountains all round —
to live in London, with its smoke and its darkness ! My
friend was convinced, and said no more.

Servants stick very closely to what they consider
their own duty, but I have never found servants object
to anything if told of it beforehand. They do not like
unexpected duties sprung upon them, and this is merely
a safe rule for their own protection. But the mistress
of a house must reserve to herself the right to ask a
servant to do anything, and if the refusal is at all
impertinent, there is nothing for it but to part. There
is reason, too, for this irritating attitude of servants
declaring they will not do work they have not been
engaged to do. The common -sense of the matter pro-
tects them from each other, as one masterful, selfish
servant would get all her work done for her by another
(as boys get their lessons done at school), if public
opinion amongst themselves were not strongly against
such a shuffling of duties.

Servants almost always behave admirably when their
common humanity is affected. At times of sorrow or
joy, births and deaths, or any sudden change and loss
of fortune, they are shaken out of their attitude of
habitual selfishness. But, as time goes on, they resent

FEBRUARY 195

the position being different from what they undertook
when engaged, and think it better to make a change.

One of the things that seems a remnant of other
days, and strikes servants themselves as being particu-
larly tyrannical, is being expected to attend family
prayers, whether they like it or not, and that, too, in
the midst of their morning work. But the attitude of
mind and the ways and customs of servants are as
incomprehensible to us as are those of the gipsies; and
to worry and hurry people who have not our views,
whose laws are not ours, whose morality is not ours,
whose customs are not ours, is a most useless tyranny,
be it directed against gipsies or against servants. These
manners and customs have grown up and are repeated
by servants over and over again, in a way that they
themselves often do not understand. One of their
invariable rules, which is often commented on, is that
servants — almost without exception — refuse to eat
game. It is generally supposed that this is because
game does not cost their masters and mistresses actual
money. This is so foolish a reason I cannot believe it
to have been the origin of the objection. I feel it is far
more likely that in the days before railways, when game
travelled slowly, it was the fashion for everybody to eat
high game ; but when it got past sending to table —
unbought luxury though it was — the thrifty house-
keeper suggested to the cook that the servants might
have it. They had far better opportunity than the
master upstairs of judging what state it was in, and I
confess I am not surprised that, as a body, they declined
to make their dinner off it. And so that mysterious
thing — a custom — grew up for servants not to eat game.

Servants, even the best and most devoted, will not
'tell of each other.' It is useless to expect it: just as
useless as a master expecting boys to tell tales at a

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public school. And, on the whole, this is a good rule
even for ourselves. If a system of tale -bearing could
be established, it would make life unbearable for all
of us.

An eternal complaint against servants is about early
rising. I believe a number of people have no doubt
that fifty or sixty years ago (which is, I fancy, the time
when rather young people think old-fashioned servants
lived) they all got up early. We are certainly not the
worst among the nations, but I do think that late rising
amounts almost to a national fault. These things are
greatly the result of climate; but to insist on maids get-
ting up in the dark, when there is very little to do, and
to give the order that the kitchen fire is to be lit at 6.30,
when the family do not breakfast till nine or half -past,
seems to me almost tyrannical, though we have a per-
fect right to expect that the water should be hot and the
breakfast ready at whatever time we choose to order it.
For two months in the winter I always postpone the
breakfast hour from eight to half -past, and I always
use — for health reasons — cold water all the year round;
but I never have the slightest difficulty in getting break-
fast punctually at eight, though I feel quite sure of one
thing, that if I did not get up early no one else would.
It seems a relief to some people's consciences to insist
on the early rising of others, when they lie in bed late
themselves. Servants are the first to remember that
they can go to bed early, when very often their masters
and mistresses cannot. I think all of us shorten our
living hours by taking more sleep than is at all neces-
sary. As an example of the strength of some men, Mr.
Max Miiller mentions that the great Baron Humboldt
complained that as he got old he wanted more sleep —
'four hours at least. When I was young,' he con-
tinued, 'two hours of sleep was enough forme.' Mr.

FEBRUARY 197

Max Miiller ventured to express his doubts, apologising
for differing from him on any physiological fact. ' It
is quite a mistake,' said Humboldt, ' though it is a very
widely spread one, to think that we want seven or eight
hours' sleep. When I was your age I simply lay down
on the sofa, turned down my lamp, and after two hours'
sleep was as fresh as ever.'

Of all servants that I have known in my life, the
ones I have admired and respected most are the chil-
dren's nurses. The love and devotion they give to
children not their own is extraordinary. The highest
life which George Eliot could imagine for 'Romola,'
after the disappointment and failure of her own life, was
to attend and minister to the children of others. Nurses
will often refuse to leave children, even when it is for
their interest to do so, knowing all the same, quite well,
the time will come when the children will leave them, as
an animal leaves its mother when it no longer wants
her. I asked a nurse of this type once, when she was
getting old, why she had never married. 'O, m'um,'
she said, ' can't you guess ? I had passed my life in the
nursery amongst ladies and gentlemen ; my own class
who wished to marry me were distasteful to me, and I
was too proud for anything else.' This last half-
sentence, with its faint allusion to having once loved
someone above her, touched me supremely. Servants
must so often pass through a temptation of the kind —
pride in those they love being such a great stimulus to
the affection and constancy of women. I think it is
very desirable that children should early come down-
stairs for their meals, and the nurse go to hers with the
other servants. She does not very often like this; but
it is for her good, and much more for her own happi-
ness, that she should not lose touch with her class and
isolate herself on a slightly raised position, which, from

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the very nature of the circumstances, can only lead to
unhappiness.

Nothing is of more importance than to help servants
with their money affairs. They are very ignorant and
very improvident, though often very generous. The
extravagant servant will listen to no reason about
putting by for the 'rainy day,' and the best among
themselves constantly help to support some of their own
relations. If they are willing and the mistress is tact-
ful, talking over their affairs is often of great use,
especially in giving them an idea what to do with their
savings, if they have any ; as, like other classes, they
constantly lose their money in unfortunate investments
offering high interest, and sometimes are even attracted
to do this by 'big' names on the prospectus, often those
of connections of their employers, which they look upon
as a guarantee for security.

Whenever depression comes upon me from associat-
ing with those who are complaining about the ways and
fashions of the time they live in and the ruin of their
own generation, whether in the classes above or those
below them, I fly to some of the books of the eighteenth
century, and never fail to get the consolation I require.
What has received the greatest abuse in my time is the
Board School education and the destruction it has
wrought amongst those who become domestic servants.
I myself totally disbelieve this. First of all, those who
go into the higher schools are very few in number, and
nothing is so important in a free country as that all
should have the power to rise, if their talents fit them
for it. Here is a sentence of Oliver Goldsmith's, in one
of his essays. In his time it was a higher class that met
with his disapproval, but it reminds me of remarks that
I am constantly hearing now about those who used to be
called 'the uneducated':

FEBRUARY 199

'Amidst the frivolous pursuits and pernicious dissi-
pations of the present age, a respect for the qualities of
the understanding still prevails to such a degree that
almost every individual pretends to have a taste for the
Belles -Lettres. The spruce 'prentice sets up for a critic,
and the puny beau piques himself on being a con-
noisseur. Without assigning causes for this universal
presumption, we shall proceed to observe that if it was
attended with no other inconvenience than that of
exposing the pretender to the ridicule of those few who
can sift his pretensions, it might be unnecessary to
undeceive the public, or to endeavour at the reformation
of innocent folly productive of no evil to the common-
wealth.'

Spending youth in school may prevent a young ser-
vant from knowing her duties as a servant so well as if
she had been brought up at home ; but, on the other
hand, being moderately well educated makes it far easier
to learn, and I maintain that, with a very little practical
teaching, the modern schoolgirl makes an excellent
servant. But no one can have a well-ordered house on
a small scale who is constantly leaving home or con-
stantly changing servants. An indifferent servant who
knows your ways is better than the good servant who is
quite fresh to the work in your house. Leaving home
often means a badly kept house, of that I am sure,
unless many members of the family remain at home and
give plenty of employment to everybody. Then, per-
haps, the real mistress of the house may be very little
missed.

The fulness of life, the selfishness of life, often
prompt the modern housewife to throw up the sponge,
to rush away to the idleness of the hotel or the lodging ;
but it is a cowardly wish — a wish, except in real bad
health, to be ashamed of. Our troubles and sorrows, be

200 MORE POT-POURRI

they real or imaginary, go with us, and our only useful-
ness is at home. Here is a poem written by one of that
brave trio, the Bronte sisters — Ellis Bell (Emily Bronte)
— which, if not so subtle as Lionel Tennyson's 'Sym-
pathy,' has a strong ring about it — that hand-shake in
life's way which helps so many :

SYMPATHY

There should be no despair for you

While nightly stars are burning,
While evening pours its silent dew,

And sunshine gilds the morning.

There should be no despair, though tears

May flow down like a river.
Are not the best beloved of years

Around your heart for ever T

They weep, you weep; it must be so:

Winds sigh as you are sighing,
And winter sheds its grief in snow

Where autumn leaves are lying.

Yet these revive, and from their fate

Your fate cannot be parted.
Then journey on, if not elate,

Still never broken-hearted I

I am told by young married women that so very
much attention has been given to cooking of late that
most girls of the leisured classes now know something
about it, or, at any rate, turn to books or go to some
school of cookery to learn ; but that they are quite ignorant
about training servants in other work, especially inex-
perienced girls who have done more schooling than
cleaning in their childhood, and who think anyone can
be a housemaid. There is excellent instruction on many
points in that book I named before, ' How to be Happy

FEBRUARY 201

though Married.' It dwells, however, rather on manage-
ment of husband and house than actually on teaching
the servants their duties. A really well-housemaided
room requires but very rarely that terrible turning- out
— when everything is upside down for a day, and things
are mislaid, and some things are never found again —
which is the terror of all masters and mistresses. Two
things are essential in a well-kept house, and, unfortu-
nately they war against each other ; one is continually
having plenty of open windows, and the other is a pre-
vention Of any accumulation of dust. This can only be
fought by continual wiping and dusting. When the
mistress of a house is looking through cupboards and
larders, and insisting that they should be well aired, the
servant's view is that then 'so much dust gets in.' And
yet, by a 'cussedness ' peculiar to themselves, they con-
stantly leave ice -safes open, which of course — to act
properly — should be kept tightly closed, and never
opened at all except for the minute when things are
taken out or put in. When the ice is melted, they
should always be carefully cleaned out. The following
is, I consider, a good way of keeping things from dust
in a larder without shutting the windows : Instead of
the usual perforated tin covers, which get rusty and
shabby and cannot be cleaned, I have neat covers of all
sizes (made at home) of rather thick zinc wire, and then
I cover these with clean butter -muslin, which can be
renewed or washed directly it gets dirty. They should
have a twisted zinc wire handle at the top, to lift the
cover on and off quite easily. The principle is the
same as the outdoor covers for keeping off spring frost
on young plants, recommended in my former book.

The real fault of all the houses I go into to-day, my
own included, though less so than some, is that they are
far two full. Things are sure to accumulate. Avoid

203 MORE POT-POURRI

rubbish, frills and valances, draperies and bows, and all
the terrible devices of the modern upholsterer. They
all mean dust and dirt in a very short time, especially in
London, and a labour to keep clean — which, in fact, no
one carries out, and which is only very temporarily
rectified by the spring cleaning once a year. I have a
French domestic book which I think fascinating and
instructive, just because it is French, and much less
showy and more primitive than English books of the
same kind. It is in two volumes, is called ' Maison
Rustique des Dames,' and is by Madame Millet Robinet.
It has had an immense sale in France, and all the little
details of household life seem more dignified and less
tiresome when read in excellent French.

I will translate one receipt for the destruction of flies
that seems to me good, and I wish I had known of it
when travelling abroad in hot weather and staying in
small hotels : ' Half fill a tumbler with soapy water.
Cut a slice of bread half an inch thick ; cover the under
side with honey, sugar, jam — anything that attracts
flies. Cut a small hole in the middle, larger at the top
than the bottom ; fix the piece of bread in the top of the
tumbler. The flies crawl in after the sweet jam, and
are quietly suffocated.' The book abounds in useful
hints of all kinds.

In my youth, tea -leaves were always used for sweep-
ing carpets. Then came the idea that they stained and
injured the colour of light carpets. This is to be recti-
fied by rinsing the tea -leaves well in cold water and
wringing them out before they are used. There is no
magic in the tea — it is the damp substance of the leaves
that gathers the dust. There is an excellent thing now
sold, called 'carpet soap,' which really revives the
colour of dirty rugs and carpets. To sweep without
using something moist merely diffuses dirt. Covering a

FEBRUARY 203

broom with a wet cloth is the best way of cleaning under
beds, wardrobes, etc. — anything to prevent the dust
flying.

If every room is taken in turn and extra cleaned once
a week, the necessity for the complete 'turning -out' is
obviated. Most people will say, 'Everyone knows that ' ;
and yet it is astonishing how one has to remember to
tell the same things, over and over again, to each fresh
young servant that comes. And one often lives a long
life without knowing most commonplace things oneself.
I never knew till the other day that black -leading fire-
brick destroyed all its qualities for radiating heat and
made it like iron. It ought never to have been black-
leaded at all.

Tin jugs are excellent for hot water, but they must
be cleaned inside with sand -paper, or they rust and
spoil.

It is almost despairing how even excellent and ex-
perienced servants forget that no crockery can or will
stand boiling water being poured into it suddenly, espe-
cially in cold weather ; the quick expansion makes all
glass and china fly. But the same thing goes on, over
and over again, in every household, from expensive
dishes or dairy-pans to servants' jugs and tumblers, and
partly one is oneself to blame for not having explained
the simple fact to each new girl who comes.

In the chapter on Furnishing, in my first book, I
recommended that young people should go to sales
instead of buying rubbish at wholesale furniture ware-
houses. Commenting on this, the excellent and amusing
writer of ' Pages from a Private Diary ' reproves me and
says: ' Why drive good taste into a mere fashion, and so
quadruple the price of pretty things for those who can
appreciate them ?' This was not my intention, though I
admit it may be a result of my advice. But I only wish

204 MORE POT-POURRI

someone had given me the hint when I was young.
However, if it does improve taste, and if it does raise the
price of pretty things, surely one's sympathies in such
matters are rather with those who have to sell the things
they value than with those who can afford to buy
them. My one object, both in this book and the last,
is to give everyone — so far as I can — anything I know
or have learnt in a long life. And in writing the first
book, under the impression that it would be an abso-
lute failure, I used to console myself by saying :
' Well, if it helps ten people just a little, that makes
it worth while.'

Old Sir Thomas Browne, in his quaint and self-
opinionative way, puts pretty strongly what I feel : ' It
is an honorable object to see the reasons of other men
wear our Liveries, and their borrowed understandings do
homage to the bounty of ours ; it is the cheapest way of
beneficence, and, like the natural charity of the Sun,
illuminates another without obscuring itself. To be
reserved and caitiff in this part of goodness is the
sordidest piece of covetousness, and more contemptible
than pecuniary Avarice.'

February 2nd. — I have been reading lately two fasci-
nating books on natural history by George D. Leslie, the
painter — one is called ' Letters to Marco' and the other
' Riverside Letters ' — descriptions of his own home on
the river. The little illustrations have a great deal of
artistic individuality, and are to me, though slight, very
superior to the ordinary photographic reproductions.
His description of cultivating the difficult ' Iris Susiana '
is so good that I think I will copy it :

'As ill-luck would have it, I missed the first burst into
bloom of an Iris Susiana, to which I had been looking
forward with great eagerness. This Iris is very difficult
to manage in our fickle climate. It is six years since it

FEBRUARY 205

bloomed with me, then it did so in the open garden; but
I have never succeeded in repeating this triumph in the
open air, and this is the first success, after many failures,
under glass. This Iris is in its native land (Levant)
generally covered with snow during the short, sharp
winter, and makes its extremely rapid growth during the
short spring which follows ; after blooming, it endures
the long, baking drought of summer, which ripens the
tuberous roots thoroughly. Of course, in our country,
such an arrangement in the open ground can hardly be
expected, and though, when planted in the open, the
tubers thrive and grow amazingly, they make in our
damp autumns far too early a start, throwing up a num-
ber of strong green blades, which are almost always
doomed to destruction by the last frosts of winter with-
out showing the least sign of bloom. The books say
that they require some protection, such as a hand-light,
in the winter, but I have tried it, over and over again,
without the slightest success. In my little greenhouse,
however, I think I have mastered the difficulties of its
culture at last. My method is to defer planting until
very late in the autumn. I put the tubers into rather a
small pot of nearly pure river sand. This pot I place
inside another larger one, and plug the space between
the pots with dry moss. I place the pots on a shelf in
the sunniest part of the greenhouse, and give no water
at all until some time after Christmas. Strange to say,
the green shoots begin to show before the plants have
received a drop of water. I give the water very liberally
at first, but in great moderation as the plants shoot into
growth. I let it have all the sun that shines, and, if the
frosts are very severe at any time, I take the pots into
my studio whilst the extreme cold lasts. This year my
treatment has been quite successful, and the plant burst
into bloom on the 4th of April.'

206 MORE POT-POURRI

This receipt will be extremely interesting to many
gardeners, and especially those — and they are not few —
who are striving to produce flowering Irises from
January to August.

I believe I mentioned before Mrs. Brightwen's 'Guide
to the Study of Botany.' I should recommend every
amateur gardener to get it. It is a clear, cheap, popular
book, and any grown-up person or child who wishes to
understand the rudiments of the mysteries of botany
could not do better than to have this book as a com-
panion.

Through the year, books on natural history and
gardening must be our constant companions to be any
real good. We must verify for ourselves what the
book tells us. This greatly increases the interest of life
in the country, and no one is ever dull or bored who
can learn about plants and insects. I know, alas !
that to those who really love to dwell in towns it is no
use speaking of such things. The poetry of life is
never to be seen by them out of the streets; and children
brought up in large towns rarely acquire a love of the
country, I think. I remember when we were children, a
friend who came from London to see us used to tell us
she could not say her prayers in the country — it was
so dreadfully still ! Fancy missing to that extent the
city's noise, the rattle of the cabs down the street, or
the measured tread of feet along the pavement ! It is
lucky, perhaps, that what we are used to is what we
like best.

A collector of old books objected to my great praise
of ' Les Roses,' by Redoute". He says : ' I do not attach
the same value to it that you do, and have never found
it of much use, as nearly all the Roses are hybrids and
varieties many of which have passed away.' I was no
doubt mistaken, but my impression was that the lovely

FEBRUARY 207

illustrations represent in many instances the wild Roses
of the world which have ceased to be cultivated, but
which could easily be produced again from seed by those
who took the trouble. This, I believe, Mr. Paul is
doing. I think, as I said before, that in a soil where
Roses grow easily a collection as large as possible of
these same wild Roses would be exceedingly interesting.
My correspondent goes on to describe a book — which I
had never seen — that treats of all the wild Roses of the
world. He says : ' You should get a coloured copy of
Lindley's "Monograph of Roses," 1819. It is an excel-
lent book, both as to plates and descriptions, and, though
not common, is cheap. You can see them all at Kew.
As you do not mention it, I fancy you cannot have the
true York and Lancaster — Shakespeare's — a very dif-
ferent plant from the one with the splash petals. This
difference is so well described in a page of Canon Ella-
combe's endlessly interesting "Gloucestershire Garden"
that I give it to you :

1 "A second favourite double or semi -double Rose is
the York and Lancaster, of which there are two kinds ;
one a very old Rose in which the petals are sometimes
white and sometimes pink, and sometimes white and
pink in the same flower. This is without a doubt the
'roses damasked, red and white' — the rose 'nor red
nor white, had stolen of both ' — of Shakespeare, and it
is the R. versicolor of the old botanical writers. In the
other sort, the petals are a rich crimson flaked with
white ; it is a very handsome Rose, comparatively
modern, and is the Rosa mundi of the ' Botanical Maga-
zine,' 1794." ' I have lately seen a double Rosa lucida,
a great improvement on the single one ; also a double
white Rosa rugosa.

Since writing the above, I have succeeded in pro-
curing through my Frankfort friend a coloured copy of

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'Rosarum Monographia/ by John Lindley (London,
1820). On the title-page is this nice little motto :

E guadagnar, se si potr&, quel dono,
Che state detto n' 6, che Eose sono.

The letterpress is far more interesting and instruc-
tive, but the actual artistic treatment of the plates is
less beautiful and delicate than Redoute"'s.

February 9th. — Where people suffer much from the
birds eating out buds, as I do, I strongly recommend
picking some of the branches of Prunus Pissardii when
in bud, and sticking them into Japanese wedges or into
ordinary glass vases. This, in so far as house decora-
tion is concerned, defeats the bullfinches, and the buds
come out very well in the room. This is the same with
all the early -flowering blossoms. The pink Almond and
Pyrus japonica are far more lovely flowered in water in
a warm room than left on the trees exposed to the cold
nights and the nipping east wind.

February 10th. — On this day list year, I went to one
of the Drill Hall Horticultural Shows, and was
especially delighted with Amygdalus davidiana; it is
one of the earliest of the flowering shrubs. I immedi-
ately bought a plant, and on my return this year I
found it in full flower, every branch wreathed with the
lovely delicate white flowers. I only wish I had bought
three or four plants instead of one. I shall certainly do
so next autumn. The branches I ventured to cut have
lasted over ten days in the room in water, and those left
on the plant have turned brown from the frosty nights.

I went to a neighbour to-day, and found the house
filled with pots of Genista prcecox. They came from
Waterer's, and a more charming effect in a large room I
never saw. The plant was beautifully grown and one
mass of pale lemon -coloured bloom — sweet -smelling,

FEBRUARY 209

too. I have long had it outside, and it does very well ;
but it seems difficult to strike, though I think it could
be managed just before it is in full bloom. I expect
what I saw was grown from seed, but it is not in
Thompson's list.

February 20ih. — I returned home to-day, after stay-
ing some little time in London. Apart from other
reasons, it is worth going away for the joy of returning.
While in London I again went to the Drill Hall Show,
on the 14th, some few days later than last year. Noth-
ing struck me so much this year as Amygddlus davidiana
did the year before ; but it was an especially good show
of flowers for so early in the season. Year by year the
Cyclamens grow larger and finer in colour, but I do not
think they are plants that have been greatly improved
by increased cultivation and Brobdingnagian size. I
prefer the pretty little, old, sweet -smelling types.
Pans full of miniature Daffodils were very attractive,
and Messrs. Hill & Co., of Lower Edmonton, had a
lovely and most uncommon collection of greenhouse
Ferns. Nephrodium membranifolium and an Aspidium
struck me particularly, from the charm of their growth.
The fashionable little, bright pink Begonia Gloire de
Lorraine was in large quantities and most effective.
The lovely Iris reticulata was also exhibited.

The London streets were more than ever full of
beautiful flowers, none beating the showy branches of
the Mimosa, Acacia deattata, from the south of France.

I found at home that the Crocuses had made much
progress, and the Daffodils, instead of only showing
green spears, are all now in bud. The complete stillness
is so delicious to me !

How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude !
But grant me still a friend in my retreat,
To whom I may whisper, ' Solitude is sweet.'

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That is what the young feel. The old can do without
companionship .

My little conservatory looked bright and full of
bloom. Last year I had a lot of Daffodils in pans, and
they did very well and forced easily. This year I have
Hyacinths ; but, though they were not very good bulbs
— some being successful, and some failures — still they
look well and picturesque in the open pans ; far prettier
than in pots. I have one little oriental slop-basin filled
with the bright blue Scillas, which is very effective ;
and the Freesias are always most satisfactory. Mr.
Sydenham recommends buying them each year ; but I
think, cheap as they are, that must be advice rather for
the seller than for the buyer, as with us, treated as
recommended before, they improve and increase, and,
when there is so much to buy, that is what I call satis-
factory. The common Lachenalias do the same. The
Lachenalia aurea is more difficult to increase. Lache-
nalias do not require so much baking and drying as the
Freesias do, and should be kept in half shade in a frame
after the leaves die down, and not quite dry. Early
re -potting in July is desirable for both.

To make variety in colour, and because they are such
useful flowers for picking — their duration in water
being almost endless — I have several pots of the Orchid
Dendrobium mobile, and one fine spike of Odontoglossum
Alexandria in full bloom. My large, old-fashioned,
sweet -smelling white Azalea, which has been so faithful
a friend for many years, has failed this year — either
from mere fatigue of being forced, or from being over-
dried and pot -bound last summer, which I think more
likely. I have a young plant of the same which is now
in full flower — Azalea indica alba it is called in the
catalogues. But often other varieties are sent out under
the same name which have no scent at all, and are con-

FEBRUARY 211

sequently much less worth growing in a small green-
house. My old plant had the most delicious, delicate,
and yet powerful perfume. We have now broken it up
and re -potted small pieces, with the hope that they may
grow again. The large pots of Imantophyllums are
looking glorious. They are rather handsomer varieties,
both in size and colour, than the usual ones. I got
them two or three years ago from Veitch, who has
specially improved these most useful and showy of
winter -flowering plants. A small, shrubby plant of the
bright yellow Coronilla gives another spot of bright
colour by the blue -green of the sweet -leaved Eucalyp-
tus. We have brought the forcing of the Polygonatum
multiflorum (Solomon's Seal) to most useful perfection;
and, put back in a reserve bed after flowering, it is ready
to force again after a year or two. It is the easiest and
most effective of the hardy plants to bring on in a
greenhouse.

February 22nd. — I brought back with me from
Ireland last year several plants of the Iris stylosa. The
white one has flowered, but not the blue ones, though
these were put in two situations — some in good, rich
soil, and some in poor ground. These latter, perhaps,
may flower later. One of the reasons why Irises should
be so much cultivated is that they have the merit, which
can never be too much appreciated, of flowering admira-
bly in water if picked in bud. A flower can hardly
claim a greater merit for domestic purposes, and, for the
same reason, they are well adapted for travelling.

February 23rd. — A treat has come for all of us
amateur gardeners this month in the publication of a
long -looked -for gardening book by Miss Jekyll, charm-
ingly illustrated from photographs of her own. But,
good as are these reproductions, in my opinion they can
never compare with woodcuts or steel engravings, and

212 MORE POT-POURRI

they give but a faint idea of the unusual charm and
beauty of her self -created garden. Her book is most
truly called, 'Wood and Garden,' and is a never-ending
lesson of how to lay out a piece of ground by using its
natural advantages instead of hopelessly destroying them
by clearing the ground to make a garden. In this case
there can be no imitation, as, without the copse -covered
piece of ground which she selected, no one could produce
the same sort of garden. Nature must have had her
way first. But the charm of the combination of nature
and art as carried out by Miss Jekyll is very great. We
always open these books at the month we are in, and
she says: 'There is always in February some one day,
at least, when one smells the yet distant, coming sum-
mer.' Such a day has been ours to-day, and I enjoyed
it doubly in consequence of having so lately returned
from London. And the forwardness of the spring — it
really is more forward even than last year — makes one
enjoy it more. Though everything is growing so fast,
it is quite agitating for the gardener, giving the feeling
that all the work is behindhand. I am told that in my
first book many thought I recommended that things
should be done too soon; but, in my experience, human
nature rather tends to reversing the proverb, and acts
on the principle of 'Never do to-day what can be done
to-morrow.' And in all things about a garden, except
when Jack Frost is to be feared, it is best to be early
rather than late.

My January -sown Green Peas are coming up very
well, but they would not survive except for the pea -wire
coverings, as the sparrows would nip out the hearts.
The black cotton strung about the Prunus Pissardii has
answered. I have far more bloom than I have ever had
before.

As I rush about the garden, and see how the Daffies

FEBRUARY 213

grow an inch each day in such weather, in spite of very
cold nights, and though I have the usual endless ' Mar-
tharish' bothers of life inside the house, I can indeed
say, with Thomson:

I care not, Fortune, what you me deny ;

You cannot rob me of free nature's grace;
You cannot shut the windows of the sky,

Through which Aurora shows her bright'ning face ;
You cannot bar my constant feet to trace

The woods and lawns by living stream at eve.
Let health my nerves and finer fibres brace,

And I their toys to the great children leave.

Of fancy, reason, virtue, nought can me bereave.

To appreciate Miss Jekyll's book in a way to profit
by it, one must read and re-read it. One more quota-
tion I must make. In 'May 'she says: 'The blooming
of the Cowslip is the signal for a search for the Morel,
one of the best of the edible fungi. It grows in open
woods, or where the undergrowth has not yet grown
high, and frequently in old parks and pastures, near or
under Elms. It is quite unlike any other fungus, shaped
like a tall egg, with the pointed end upwards, on a short,
hollow stalk, and looking something like a sponge. It
has a delicate and excellent flavour, and is perfectly
wholesome.' I have, alas! spent nearly all my life, and
I have never searched for the Morel ! Have you, dear
reader ?

February 26th. — I have been to-day planting large
quantities of the roots of the Tropceolum speciosum in
various parts of the garden. These were given to me
by a kind neighbour. He says the great secret (and he
is very successful himself) is digging the holes quite
four feet deep, filling them in with leaf -mould and the
light earth, and planting the roots a foot below the sur-
face, and then they have two feet of loose soil to work

214 MORE POT-POURRI

down into. I hope they may be successful ; I do hate
being beaten. At least some must succeed, one would
think, planted in five different situations. They have
to be labelled with large white labels, as the great dan-
ger, if one's back is turned, is of their being dug up,

Driving last year on this day, I find I noticed the
Nettles were well up in the hedges and just ready for
picking, and the catkins were hanging from the Hazel
boughs. A little Celandine, on a moist bank, opened its
yellow star in the sun. I have never seen it cultivated
in gardens, which — weed though it is — seems a pity, and
I think I shall try it in patches under some shrubs. No
doubt it is rather its early appearance than its shining
beauty that has made it so loved of the poets. Words-
worth describes it and its surroundings with grace and
truth in the following well-known poem:

Pansies, Lilies, King-cups, Daisies,

Let them live upon their praises ;

There's a flower that shall be mine,

'Tis the little Celandine!

Ere a leaf is on a bush,

In the time before the thrush

Has a thought about its nest,

Thou wilt come with half a call,
Spreading out thy glossy breast,

Like a careless prodigal;
Telling tales about the sun,
When we've little warmth or none.

Careless of thy neighbourhood,
Thou dost show thy pleasant face ;

On the moor and in the wood,
In the lane — there's not a place,

Howsoever mean it be,

But 'tis good enough for thee.

I picked to-day and ate with great relish my first
Dandelion salad. I can recommend it again and again

FEBRUARY 215

to salad lovers ; but it must be very carefully washed,
as any grit entirely spoils it. Later on the leaves get
tough and bitter.

February 27th. — The last few days have been very
cold, but I have some most beautiful branches of Alm-
ond in full flower in the house. They were picked,
as I have explained, whilst in bud, and put to expand
in the greenhouse. This method defies the frosts and
wind, and greatly prolongs the time of enjoying the
blossoms.

About this time last year I cut away another bed of
Laurels, which we had not time to do in the autumn,
and it has made a nice snug corner for some newly-
bought flowering shrubs — Lilacs which I had not got,
such as Dr. Lindley and Charles X., and some white
ones ; a double -flowering Cherry, which is such a beau-
tiful thing (though I fear it will never do well here, as
it likes a strong, damp soil) ; a Cerasus, Pseudo Cera-
sus, Double Crimson Peach, Hamamelis japonica (which
has died), Eucryphia pinnatifolia, and the before -men-
tioned Amygdalus davidiana alba. I have a great
many Spiraeas in the garden, but never till now the
Spiraea confusa, which forces very well, and is a lovely
thing. I have put it, for the present, with these new
shrubs. I find it a distinct advantage putting new
things in one place, as then one sees how they do, and
what spreads and flourishes, and what is only a dry
stick and a label the following year. It is mysterious
why some plants die. I bought two beautiful Tea Roses
in pots, which were planted outside and drawn through
into the greenhouse — one a Mare~chal Niel, the other
Niphetos. Both flourished equally well through the
summer. The next spring, without any apparent rea-
son, the Marechal Niel having made its leaves, turned
brown and died — very provoking, as in this way one

2i6 MORE POT-POURRI

loses a whole year's growth. I think anyone who grows
forced Tea Roses for picking will find they do far better
and look more satisfactory in water if floated in large
glass bowls than if only their stalks are in water.

I received a letter to-day from the Engadine, describ-
ing a phase of modern luxury which reads strangely to
those who live quietly in country corners. My friend
writes from San Moritz, and thus describes an episode
in a fancy-dress ball: 'In the cotillon they had an
enormous silver sledge, smothered in the most gor-
geously lovely flowers — Imantophyllums, lAlium spe-
ciosum, Lilies -of -the -Valley with stalks eight inches
long, white Lilac and Prunus. And all these looked
as if they had just been freshly gathered ; yet the
whole thing came from a flower -shop at Frankfurt -on-
the-Main. I must say I never saw anything prettier,
and in the sledge sat a lovely downy young English
beauty, scattering bunches of flowers about, as they
dragged her round the room. The whole thing seemed
beautiful Fairyland, up here in this world of ice and
snow.' I suppose it is no more luxury for those who
can afford it than my humble little greenhouse, which
also costs money ; yet one cannot help feeling sorry
that these beautiful hothouse flowers should have been
dragged up there for the wasteful enjoyment of one
evening.

RECEIPTS

Poulet a la Valencienne. — Cut a good fowl into
pieces. Wipe it dry, but do not put it into water.
Take a saucepan, put in a wineglassful of olive oil, and
add two cloves of garlic. Be careful that it does not
burn ; for if it does, it will turn bitter. Stir the garlic
until it is fried. Put in the chicken. Keep stirring it

FEBRUARY 217

about while it fries, then add some salt, and continue
to stir. Whenever a sound of cracking is heard, stir
it again. When the chicken is well browned, which
will take from five to ten minutes, stirring constantly,
put in chopped onions, three or four chopped red or
green chillies, and stir about. If once the contents
catch the pan, the dish is spoilt. Then add tomatoes
divided into quarters, and parsley. Take three tea-
cupfuls of well -washed rice, and mix up well together.
Then add hot stock, enough to cover over the whole.
Let it boil once, then set aside to simmer till the rice
becomes tender and done. The great art consists in
having the rice turned out granular and separate, and
not in a pudding state, which is sure to be the case if a
cover is put over the dish, so that the steam is con-
densed. It should be served up in the casserole in
which it is cooked. Bits of fish, sausage, and chicken
livers may be added ; also a little saffron.

Chasse. — Ingredients : One onion, six tomatoes,
three potatoes, a slice of ham, some grated cheese, red
pepper, very little allspice. Fry the sliced onion lightly
in some lard and butter mixed. Add the tomatoes and
ham, both cut into small pieces. When they are well
browned, add some water and then the potatoes, hav-
ing first cut them in dice shapes. Let all cook until the
potatoes are done ; then, just before serving, mix in
grated cheese, well flavoured with red pepper, until the
sauce is 'ropy.' Have a very hot dish, pour the sauce
on to it, and serve carefully poached eggs on the top.
This makes a delightful breakfast dish.

Water Souehet.— Take six flounders, fillet four;
put the fillets into a saucepan. The carcasses and the
others put into a stewpan with some stock, a bit of
parsley and a little carrot, which boil for an hour.
Strain, and shred some carrot, also parsley root and a

2i8 MORE POT-POURRI

few sprigs of parsley. Boil for ten minutes more. Put
the fillets into the oven to cook. When the souchet is
dished, put in the fillets, and serve with brown bread
and butter, and lemons.

Everything of the kind is now to be bought, but I
think the following few receipts may turn out useful.
In washing paint, so many do not know how injurious
is soda or yellow soap or soft soap.

For Washing1 White Paint. — Shred common yellow
household soap, and boil it down in a saucepan with
sufficient whitening to make it into a thick paste. Put
it in a jar, and use a little on a rag when required. It
will clean the paint perfectly, and will not turn it yel-
low. Never use soda for paint ; it spoils it and marks
it at once.

Furniture Polish.— To clean, polish, and take marks
out of furniture, ' Sanitas Furniture Polish' is excellent
and not expensive ; but the following is an old re-
ceipt and very good : Equal quantities of methylated
spirit, vinegar, and linseed oil. The bottle should
be well shaken before using, or the spirit remains on
the top and will burn the polished surface of whatever
it touches.

For Polishing1 New Brown Boots and Shoes. — I
am sure many people will agree with me as to the
extreme ugliness of new brown shoes ; yet we all must
have them new sometimes. An excellent way of cor-
recting this ugly newness is to rub the leather three
times in succession with vaseline. After that, clean
them in the ordinary way with brown cream, and they
will take the polish as if they were months old.

To Remove Fruit Stains. — Soak the stain in a
glass of water in which you have put ten to twelve
drops of sulphuric acid. Then wash with clear water.

To Prevent Lamp-wicks from Smoking.— Steep

FEBRUARY 219

the wicks in very strong vinegar; then let them dry
completely before they are used.

A series of penny books, published as the ' Domestic
Science Series,' is full of useful information. The only
one I actually know, called ' Manual of Housewifery for
Elementary Schools,' by Helena Head, to be bought at
4 Princes Road, Liverpool, seems to me thoroughly
practical.

One thing I must copy out of Mrs. Roundell's most
excellent 'Practical Cookery Book,' more especially as it
is not a cooking receipt, but a cure for one of the most
distinct worries that affect nearly every house in Eng-
land, more especially if keeping down in the spring is
neglected — and yet how few servants do not neglect it
till it has become a plague! — I mean blackbeetles. Mrs.
Roundell gives the following receipt, and we found it
excellent in a new flat in London which swarmed with
them :

*To Destroy Blaekbeetles. — Not long ago the
kitchens and bakeries of the Fir Vale Union Work-
house at Sheffield swarmed with blackbeetles, to such an
extent that the Government Inspector feared the build-
ings would have to be pulled down. The insects even
got into the soup and bread provided for the inmates, in
spite of all vigilance and every remedy. The Board of
Guardians, in despair, consulted the curator of the
Sheffield Museum— Mr. Howarth, F.Z.S.— and he in-
vented a paste which in a short time completely freed
the workhouse from blackbeetles. This "Union" cock-
roach paste can be had in tins from Mr. Hewitt, chemist,
66 Division street, Sheffield. It never fails in its effect.'

' Keating' s Powder ' is also effectual if the beetles are
swept up in the morning and destroyed.

MARCH

Confessions about diet — Cures for rheumatism — Effects of tea-
drinking — Sparing animal life a bad reason for vegetarianism
— The Berlin foot-race — Mrs. Crow in Edinburgh — Bagehot on
luxury — A word about babies — German and English nurseries —
Sir Richard Thome Thorne on raw milk— The New Education
Difficulty of understanding young children — Gardening —
Cooking.

I feel at last the moment has come when I must make
a confession. I am a non- meat -eater ! I know that
this will probably entail the loss of the good opinion of
my readers, and I should never have dreamt of bringing
forward so personal a matter, had I not felt compelled
to do so in consequence of the numbers of letters I have
received in which the writers deplore their loss of health,
their gout and rheumatism, and the general ailments
that prevent their going into the garden, etc. This
strikes me as unnatural and wrong. There is no reason
at all, unless there be actual disease, that sickness
should, as a matter of course, accompany old age any
more than any other period of life.

This chapter is not intended for the young or the
healthy or the really sick, but for those chronic sufferers
who are constantly appealing to the medical profession
for ' something ' that will cure their aches and pains,
their sleepless nights, their stiff joints, and their neu-
ralgias, and who put all their faith in drugs which, even
when they seem to do good, turn out to be palliatives,
not cures— that is, in the case of constitutions where the
ailments are the result of gout and rheumatism.

(220)

MARCH 221

Some years ago all these symptoms in various degrees
were mine, and I fully expected that they would increase
with age ; but I was wrong — by gradual steps they all
disappeared. Nothing, of course, makes the old young;
but bad health, the chief dread of old age, I no longer
have. I can work out in the garden with even greater
impunity than I could have done twenty years ago. I
take long journeys — say, of twenty -seven hours— with-
out fatigue, and I sleep excellently. This all reads like
an advertisement for a patent medicine, but it is noth-
ing of the kind; in fact, for years I have taken no medi-
cine at all. But if I am asked to account for this im-
provement, in one word it is — diet. I have become an
ardent advocate of non-meat-eating, but without any of
those sentimental feelings about the killing of animals
which many people have who yet continue to partake of
ordinary food ; nor did it begin from the belief that
meat is a frequent conveyor of poisons. I left it off at
first simply as an experiment. I believe that meat,
especially if eaten daily — the small quantities ferment
the other foods— is on the whole deleterious to the health
of the human race, and simply poisonous to the gouty,
the rheumatic, or the neuralgic.

All through my lifetime there seems to have been the
strongest belief everywhere in Europe, amongst all
classes (especially those who are habitually over -fed),
that if they feel weak or anasmie, or what is called ' be-
low par,' therefore they must try and eat more, and cram
themselves with stimulating food, such as meat-juices,
beef- tea, or even raw beef, and — as with drugs or alco-
hol— for a time it often answers. The origin of this
belief, no doubt, has come from the teaching of the
medical profession, only disputed now and then by a
solitary member. Surely this system is nearly on the
level, and only one degree less harmful, than yielding to

222 MORE POT-POURRI

the request of the poor drunkard, who wildly cries for
more of the very poison that is killing him. The imme-
diate relief is actual and visible ; the after -reaction in
both cases being the cause of fresh suffering.

My object as a propagandist in the cause of non-
meat-eating is merely to give others my experience, with
the ordinary human desire that they may try a cure
which has been so beneficial to myself. When, some
years ago, chronic rheumatism was gaining upon me, I
resorted to the usual solaces of the well-to-do. I con-
sulted doctors, I took drugs, I left off wine — which be-
fore the age of forty I had rarely taken, and after forty
only in small quantities. I went to Aix-les- Bains. I
got momentary relief from all these cures, but on the
whole the malady gained upon me, and I looked forward
to a cripply old age with great dread, knowing full well
that it would prevent my enjoying my favourite occupa-
tion of gardening. My family physician summed up the
case with : 'Well, Mrs. Earle, at your age this rheuma-
tism which has settled in the hips is extremely difficult
of cure.' I repeated this to a vegetarian friend, who
lent me a book, called ' The Science of Healing,' by L.
Kuehne, a German non- medical man who practises a
strict vegetarian water-cure at Leipzig. In consequence
of reading this book, I undertook to try and cure myself.
The results have been simply wonderful, and I find the
kind* of food I eat, now that I am used to it, entails no
self-denial at all. I carried out the cure strictly for
many months — almost as strictly as Kuehne recom-
mends, only breaking his rule by a small amount of milk
and butter, and I was greatly the better for it. I took
absolutely no animal food, and neither cheese nor eggs.
If ever I relapsed into ordinary diet, after a very little
time the old pains reasserted themselves. My friends
declared I looked old and ugly, and most of my family

MARCH 223

thought the first illness would play the part of the legs
in the epitaph :

Two bad legs and a troublesome cough,
But the legs it was that carried her off.

My own faith in the matter only grew and grew, but
it has taken four or five years for me to be absolutely
free of pain, and even to this day I occasionally feel
twinges, which I immediately treat by diminishing in
quantity what I generally eat. The result is invariably
satisfactory, and unaccompanied by any feelings of
weakness or fatigue. Last year I became the object of
considerable jealousy to one of my friends, who could
not understand why I had grown so much better. I,
loth to encounter the anger of her numerous family by
recommending my method, remarked — what I did not
believe — that very likely my diet would not suit her. I
am so tired of hearing that 'One man's meat is another
man's poison' ! Seeing the marked improvement in me,
and thinking the matter over after I had left, she tele-
graphed to her London doctor, saying : ' Who is the
great authority in London at this moment on gout and
rheumatism?' He wired back: 'Dr. Haig, of Brook
street.' She accordingly went to him. When next we
met, one of her first remarks was : 'A most extraordi-
nary thing has happened to me. I have been to a new
doctor for my rheumatism, and his printed paper on diet
is in all essentials what you practise, except that he
orders more milk and cheese.' She handed me the leaf-
let, and from this I got to know Dr. Haig and his most
interesting book, 'Uric Acid as a Factor in the Causa-
tion of Disease.' This book is rather medical for the
ordinary public, who had better begin with his two-
shilling book called ' Diet and Food considered in Rela-
tion to Strength and Power of Endurance, Training and

224 MORE POT-POURRI

Athletics.7 On Dr. Haig's recommendation, I deserted
the extreme strictness of the German cure, and I have
undoubtedly felt stronger for taking more skimmed milk
(separated would be better) and a little cheese, though
whenever I am less well I go back to the Kuehne diet.
It was the greatest satisfaction to me to find a man
whose years of study and scientific investigations en-
tirely corresponded with my own groping experiences.
If anybody now ever asks me about the matter, I say :
' Read Dr. Haig's books, and then consult him or not,
as you like.' His tables of diet are so severe that I am
afraid they may tempt a great number of people to agree

with the late Lord D , who, when sent a sample of

sherry which was recommended to him as being essen-
tially wholesome, wrote back that he found it so bitter
and dry he much preferred the gout.

Although it is rare to find a doctor who will recom-
mend strict dieting in chronic cases, I think it is becom-
ing equally rare for a doctor to make any objection if
the patient himself proposes it. He will not risk offend-
ing a patient by not giving him medicines and by greatly
reducing his food. One can hardly blame a doctor for
this, and it brings us to the conclusion that the initia-
tive in matters of diet and abstinence must come from
the patients themselves.

Not many people seemed to take any interest in the
health allusions in my last book. Still, I received the
following letter, which, in a chapter bound to be unpop-
ular, the few who read it may find as interesting as I
did:

' I have been specially interested in your health chap-
ter, for if there is one subject more than another which
ought to be thrashed out by the lay mind, it is health.
On it depends, to a great extent, the future progress of
mankind. As a rule, individuals lean to the idea that it

MARCH 225

is not a question for themselves to think on. They
seem to imply that it is a question solely for the medical
hierarchy. But these authorities are so hampered by
the limitations engrained in them in their medical educa-
tion that it is with difficulty any of them exercise a free
mind on the subject. You have given examples, it is
true, of some few ; and I know a few more, both here
and in America, who have broken away and have given
full vent to their reasoning powers. All hail to them,
but they want supporting. There is no doubt that if
doctors were to take up the reforms honestly they would
do good, inasmuch as there is a blind faith in them on
the part of the majority of people. But when has a
profession reformed itself? All reforms come from
outside.

' There are two great assumptions on which medicos
act, and on which they impel their patients to act. The
first is, that it is positively necessary, under all circum-
stances, to eat every day in order to live. Dr. Keith,
whose book I have just seen before I got yours, is an
exception to this ; and Dr. Dewey, in America, in his
New Gospel of Health, ' ' is another. They show clearly
that not only is it not necessary, but under certain con-
ditions of illness it is positively injurious to eat. I have
seen, I am sorry to say, food violently forced down the
throat of a patient by a medical man when nature was
evidently telling the patient that food was no good, but,
on the contrary, was adding to the troubles. This is
quite irrespective of what is suitable food and what is
not. All I maintain is, that at times no food at all is re-
quired, for it is then only by the absence of food that
nature finds time to recuperate herself. The second
assumption that the Faculty, as a body, insist on is, that
meat is absolutely necessary for strength. Meat is no
doubt a concentrated food, but concentrated foods are

226 MORE POT-POURRI

not necessarily nourishing. On the contrary, the waste
that comes from them is most trying to all the organs of
the body, which, after a time, break down entirely.
There are heaps of foods which are natural foods, which
easily assimilate, and which in their waste are not unduly
trying. Then, no doubt, in meat there is decomposition
always going on, which, when it is eaten by human be-
ings, may produce fermentation leading to serious dis-
eases. Of course there are many other arguments against
meat ; but as long as it is considered a positively neces-
sary food, there is no good using them. I find that with
young people it is useless to preach against meat. They
like it, they see everybody eating it, they are told that
the Faculty consider it positively necessary, and, owing
to their youth, they feel no ill -effects, except now and
then a temporary derangement, which they attribute to
something they don't like so much. The great thing
with them is to urge abstemiousness, and even at times
total abstinence, and, when they feel ill, simple starva-
tion. The day may come when they will find it best for
themselves to give up meat. I only wish that I had
been brought up to rely upon my own reason in dealing
with illness. Half the ailments that mankind suffers
from could be cured by nature herself, if she were given
time and were not forced. She is interfered with in
every way by both doctor and patient.

'Power has been usurped by the Faculty. Very few
men can stand power ; they get to be assertive and dog-
matic, and eventually become tyrants.'

So I hear of bad health here, sufferings there, and,
what we used to say of old people when we were young,
'cases of fifteen mortal maladies and yet living on to a
good old age.' They live long because their constitutions
are good; they suffer much, in my opinion, because they
eat what is not good for them, both as to quality and

MARCH 227

quantity, only adding to their ailments instead of dimin-
ishing them. The modern invalid always says : ' The
doctor has ordered me to eat well,' and feels his con-
science absolved. This reminds me of a rather good old
story which a doctor told me, when I was a girl in Brus-
sels, as having happened to himself. A bishop who was
eating stuffed turkey with this doctor on Good Friday
excused himself to a punctilious friend, who was shown
into the dining-room by accident, saying: 'Le docteur
me le commande, et moi je lui donne absolution.' But
can one imagine anything more hopelessly exasperating
for poor doctors, who have to make their living, than to
find that loss of patients is the result if they venture
even to ask in chronic cases what people eat and drink ?
We all know how they knock off food in cases of serious
illness, though even then I think they still allow far too
much. During convalescence it is often desirable for
the patient to eat anything that he can digest.

I know it will be said that the next generation may
suffer from the results of a low diet, as the doctors are
perpetually telling us that we have all suffered from the
port wine drinking and high living of our ancestors.
Nothing but time can prove this.

In my youth, heaps of doctors, especially on the Con-
tinent, still believed in bleeding, particularly in fever
cases. Now this is as unknown as if it had never been
practised at all. Is this right or wrong ?

I see even restaurants now advertise suppers which
are not indigestible ! An interesting pandering to the
growing faith that good health comes far before good
feeding.

I was asked the other day to give a lecture on the
right spending of money. Oh ! what a fraud these
appeals to my knowledge or wisdom make me feel ! I,
who have so little knowledge of figures that I cannot

228 MORE POT-POURRI

even keep my own accounts ! But most certainly, if I
were to give a lecture, I should say to everyone, high
and low: 'Spend far less in food and drink.' To the
under -fed and poor : 'Live twice as well as you do, on
what you have, by spending judiciously.' To the farm-
ers : 'Grow more peas and beans for wholesome human
food.' And to the seedsman : 'Sell these food -pro-
ducing seeds much cheaper, and put the price on to
something else.'

I have said nothing about the cheapness of the diet I
recommend, as it is not cheap if it does not make you
well. If it does, it is very satisfactory, I think, to spend
so very little on food ; and eating so much less at each
meal is so delightfully comfortable ! I could not have
believed some years ago that it was possible to keep in
excellent health on so little.

In Dr. Haig's little book 'Diet and Food,' he holds
out a kind of millennium where cooks might cease to
exist, and he gives a table of food requiring scarcely
any cooking, and which yet contains what he considers
a sufficient amount of albumen. This might prove ex-
tremely useful under exceptional circumstances.

A reform I should much like to see is that, when a
doctor leaves a house at the end of an illness, he himself
should burn his prescriptions ; and that it might be
made penal for chemists to make them up except by a
doctor's orders. Doctors frequently give strong remedies
in severe cases, but they themselves would be the first to
regret these remedies being taken again and again on
the smallest provocation by the patient. The insane
desire to kill pain and to gain relief by narcotics and
strength by tonics which pervades our modern society,
from the youngest to the oldest, is, in my opinion, very
likely to act more deleteriously on the constitution than
the excesses of past generations. People become aware

MARCH 229

of the loss of health, but the mysterious ways in which
remedies may have injured us are wrapped in as com-
plete darkness as is the origin of most of the diseases
from which all classes suffer.

I wonder if other people have noticed, as I have done
throughout my life, that the families where medicines
are least in use are those of doctors themselves. This
want of faith in drugs on their part was one of the first
things which, years ago, opened my eyes.

What strikes me is, how few people are really well !
And if they could put side by side the pleasure of eating
food which is harmless, and the better health and
strength this would bring, compared with the pleasure
of eating large dinners and the feeling of the following
morning thrown into the balance, I believe the bird-in-
the-hand pleasure would lose most of its attractions. It
has been a real surprise to me, though apparently doc-
tors know it well, how vast a number of people would
much rather be ill, or even die, than be convinced that
the food they like does them harm. The young, espe-
cially, seem to think that one of the chief pleasures of
life would be removed if they did not eat what they pre-
ferred, quite forgetting that fruit and sugar and many
other good things are quite harmless — nay, beneficial —
to the non- meat -eater. What we do daily soon ceases
to be the penance that abstinence once a week was sup-
posed to inflict. It may be said that 'starving,7 with
many people, does not make them feel well. All I can
say is, it is very seldom tried on the right lines; at any
rate, not for long enough time to give it a chance.

It is curious how things repeat themselves. Sydney
Smith says, in one of his letters : 'All gentlemen and
ladies eat too much. I made a calculation, and found I
must have consumed some wagon -loads too much in the
course of my life. Lock up the mouth, and you have

23o MORE POT-POURRI

gained the victory. I believe our friend Lady Morley
has hit upon the right plan in dining modestly at two.
When we are absorbed in side-dishes, and perplexed
with variety of wines, she sits amongst us, lightly flirt-
ing with a potato, in full possession of her faculties and
at liberty to make the best use of them — a liberty, it
must be owned, she does not neglect. For how agree-
able she is ! I like Lady Morley; she is what I call good
company.1

The really difficult part of practising any form of
diet, especially if you have gained immensely by the
results, is the irritation it causes to the people who
surround you. I was told the other day that having
mentioned in a letter the fact that I had become a vege-
tarian was more than enough to account for my receiv-
ing no answer. If any sufferers feel tempted to follow
my example of a strict diet, I strongly recommend them
to do all in their power to make it as unobtrusive a
factor in family life as possible. It will also be found a
great advantage to those who go out in society to cheat;
by which I mean, take things on your plate as a 'blind,'
though you have no intention of eating them. The
sympathy expressed lest you should kill yourself, and
the terror lest your influence should prove the death of
somebody else, make life a martyrdom for a very insuf-
ficient cause.

I never realised till this year that there is considerable
danger in a sudden change of diet, especially in hot
weather and to those who are most in need of it. One
is always hearing of cases where abstention from meat
answers for a few months, and then has to be given up
because the patient finds himself less well, and attributes
everything to his change of diet. Dr. Haig fully ex-
plains the reason for this. He may, of course, be wrong
in his deductions; if he is right, it should lead to great

MARCH 231

changes in diet in this country through the conver-
sion of the medical profession.

One of the great advantages of the non- sentimental
over the sentimental vegetarian is that in case dislike of
foods occurs, as it very commonly does, and with it a
decided depression of the nervous system from the drop-
ping of all stimulants, a slight return to ordinary diet
for a time may be beneficial. Anything is better than
producing a nervous irritation against the diet. Pa-
tients at any rate are then able to realise for themselves
whether it does them good or not, and are able to
remember how they benefited at first from the cure, and
go back to it when they feel inclined. They must also
remember that much that they suffer from is hereditary,
and has to be continually fought rather than cured. To
attribute every ailment to the new diet, when people
have lived on meat and stimulants all their lives, and
had constant attacks of illness, is, to say the least of it,
unreasonable. In the case of vegetarians, Dr. Haig has
told me that they often come to him insufficiently nour-
ished. It is specially easy for vegetarians to over- eat
and yet be under -fed.

I am the last to deny that many, and especially old
people, have benefited from a purely meat diet (the
'Salisbury Cure') when very strictly carried out, though
I never tried it myself. All that I feel, and I feel it
strongly, is that health is more likely to be bettered by
only taking food that clearly improves the blood than by
depending for cure on alterative medicines and tonics
which only relieve for a time.

True wisdom always brings us back to the old rule
that moderation in all things is the best guide for every-
body. The fact has long been known with regard to
alcohol ; but it has only lately been acknowledged that
tea, coffee, and beef or chicken tea, are also stimulants

232 MORE POT-POURRI

and not food, and are injurious to the nervous system.
Who would not have laughed, a few years ago, at the
statement that tea -drinking in large quantities produces
a form of delirium tremens f And yet the illness is now
quite recognised as existing among the under -fed who
drink tea in excess. The craving for stimulants of some
kind is universal, especially when nourishment is insuf-
ficient. This proves, I think, that what is most wished
for is not always best for us.

The law, and generally our own inclination, obliges
us to leave the treatment of disease, once acquired, in
the hands of doctors and surgeons, and this in spite of
the many mistakes they make — often grievous mistakes,
such as cutting people open and then merely sewing
them up again because nothing is wrong, or leaving
pieces of lint or even forceps inside after operations.
Both these cases have come under my knowledge.
Knowing of these things only depresses one and does no
good. But the maintaining of health from babyhood
upwards and the prevention of disease— for these, to my
mind, all human beings are individually responsible,
both as regards themselves and their children. The
more the latest and most conflicting scientific theories
on the subject are known by everybody the better.

For all who are interested in the subject of non-
meat-eating, much general information (cooking and
other) is to be got from 'The Vegetarian,' a weekly
penny newspaper. It is, of course, written from the sen-
timental point of view of the non- killing of animals,
the health of man being considered as only secondary.
Everyone with any understanding must have his feel-
ings aroused by the sufferings of animals, whether
caused by man or by each other. The killing of ani-
mals comes under a different category. Anyone who
keeps cows knows well the sad order that has to go

MARCH 233

forth for the slaughter of the beautiful little bull-calf,
as even the most fortunate farmer cannot expect to
breed only cows. Is not all or nearly all our compli-
cated civilised life directly or indirectly mixed up with
the killing of animals ? No one can hate cruelty more
than I do ; no one can wish more than I do that legisla-
tion should be applied to control and rule the cruelty of
man. But the most tender-hearted of old maids has to
shut her eyes to the fact that superfluous kittens and
puppies are put out of the way; and if we are told that
the rats are devouring our beautiful black and white
pigeons, the cruel rat-catcher is sent for to fight and
kill the enemy, though, poor things ! Mr. and Mrs. Rat
enjoyed their spring life and their young families quite
as much as the pigeons. Can vegetarians keep their
kitchens full of blackbeetles or their Roses covered with
greenfly? Do they give over all their Peaches to the
wasps, or their nuts to the mice 1

The wasteful redundancy of nature involves the
whole question in a cloud of difficulties, and to my mind
not one of these is removed, nor is any light thrown on
the subject by the sentimental view that we should give
up eating meat, not for our own good, but with the idea
of sparing animal life.

Besides, such countless other products are dependent
upon the killing of animals that, even if the whole world
were non- meat -eating, hardly fewer animals than at
present would be bred and slaughtered.

I myself believe it has to be proved that people who
do not eat meat are less strong than those who do. The
subject is receiving much attention in Germany. Last
year I saw in the newspapers that a man left money to
build a school for poor children, on condition that it was
conducted on vegetarian principles. The trustees re-
fused the bequest. On the other hand, last June a very

234 MORE POT-POURRI

interesting walking -match took place in Berlin wnich,
the papers said, attracted the attention of the Minister
of War. The course was over seventy English miles.
There were twenty-two starters, amongst them eight
vegetarians, and the distance had to be covered within
eighteen hours. The interesting result was that the first
six to arrive at the goal were vegetarians, the first fin-
ishing in fourteen and a quarter hours. The two other
vegetarians missed their way and walked five miles more.
All reached the goal in splendid condition. Not till an
hour after the last vegetarian arrived did the first meat-
eater appear, and he was then completely exhausted.
He, moreover, was the only one, the others having
dropped off after thirty -five miles. This does not look
as if power of endurance were necessarily diminished by
non-meat-eating, and a great many people who have
tried non- stimulating food find, as I do, that their brains
are immensely clearer, their capacity for work restored
and increased, they are much less affected by changes of
temperature, and their general powers of endurance are
much greater than before. In short, my belief that
wrong diet, in some form or other, is the cause of all the
hundred and one complaints which are called by different
names, and that they do not originate from external
germs, is as great, and some will say of the same nature,
as that of Mrs. Crow, the ghost-seer in the old story.
This lady had unbounded faith that certain acts would
make her invisible, and so went out into the streets of
Edinburgh, with nothing on and a prayer book in one
hand. A policeman rushed at her with his cape. She
was not disconcerted, but said : ' What, you see me ?
Then I must have put the book into the wrong hand.'

I have noticed before the fact of the extraordinary
economy brought about by reduction in food, wine, etc. ;
but this is not necessarily an argument in favour of a

MARCH 235

simple diet. The money people have must go some-
where ; and if they like meat and drink better than most
things, but for the injury to the body it might as well
go in that way as in any of the other luxuries of life
which are not essentials. Much as I enjoy providing
food for others, I now feel that it is anything but a true
kindness to them. It is difficult to imagine the change
that would come over civilisation if that most improb-
able of all miracles were to take place and the majority
of people became non- meat -eaters. I have a note from
one of Walter Bagehot's books, which points out the
evil of reduction in luxury. I am not political econo-
mist enough to know whether his view is generally ac-
cepted now ; it is in contradiction to that of other
teachers. He says :,'We must observe, what is inces-
santly forgotten, that it is not a Spartan and ascetic
state of society which most generates saving. On the
contrary, if a whole society has few wants there is little
motive for saving. . . . Nothing is commoner than to
read homilies on luxury. Without the multifarious
accumulation of wants, which are called luxury, there
would in such a state of society be far less saving than
there is. And if it be good for the poor that capital
should be saved, then the momentary luxury which
causes that saving is good for the poor.' I spend in
fruit and on the garden what I should have spent under
ordinary circumstances in meat and wine, with certainly
more enjoyment to myself and, perhaps, less waste.

My nieces, I believe, look upon me as a kind of witch
— meant no doubt as a subtle compliment — and, now
that many are married and have babies, they say they
want my opinion on the important question of how to
manage them. I am very fond of babies and a great
admirer even of large families, now so out of fashion.
In a book lately published, I read the other day of a

*36 MORE POT-POURRI

bishop at the beginning of this century who wrote to his
young married daughter : 'Go on, my dear Eliza, and
never fear hurting your constitution by honest child-
bearing, since, for one mother that grows thin with this
work, there are five hundred old maids that grow thin
for want of it.' As a matter of fact, I have seen very
little of nurseries of late years, but I never travel in
railway carriages with babies, or look into the village per-
ambulators, without being shocked by the universal use
of those terrible modern inventions, sold by every chemist
throughout the land, called 'baby comforters or soothers.'
I cannot imagine any child's digestion not being weak-
ened and injured by them. The suction is exactly the
same as with the real bottle, and the waste of saliva
must be excessive ; so great that the flow must be much
reduced when food is actually taken, and this of itself
must begin the non- assimilation of food which modern
children, especially those brought up by hand, suffer
from so much. My objection applies to babies after
they are three or four months old ; before that these
'comforters' do not do much harm. But, the habit once
acquired, few nurses or mothers have the courage to
break it.

Every doctor I have asked has corroborated my view
on this subject. A thoroughly conscientious doctor
ought, I think, to refuse to attend the children of the
rich where such things are used. The mothers and
nurses say : ' It is such a comfort to the child, and pre-
vents its crying, which is so dangerous.' This is the
modern receipt for everything ! Momentary relief and
palliatives, at the cost of eventual good ! What makes
babies cry is not only dyspepsia and discomfort, but also
spoiling ; that is to say, responding to that natural
appeal of crying for what they want. Many a child
that has been too much held in nurses' arms from its

MARCH 237

birth cries when it is laid down. That does not mean
that it is bad for the child to lie down, for, if it is quite
loosely dressed, this does it only good. It cries, as a
dog whines, merely to express, in the only way that it
can, what it wants ; and if taken up directly it cries,
this teaches it, by the only way it can learn, to do it
again next time.

I saw some years ago a most intelligently managed
baby ; it was half German, half French. I was also
much struck with the superior common -sense of many of
the arrangements in the foreign nursery that I visited,
and was told that they were the general custom in that
part of the world. All babies' cots from the very begin-
ning are firm, never rocking — which must be better.
And the little mattress is made of hard, firm horsehair,
not wool. On the top of this is another mattress, made
of strong linen, four or five inches thick, loosely filled
with husks. The pillow is also loosely filled with the
same material; viz,, the husks of oats, well dried and
cleaned of all dust. The husks can be got from a corn
or forage merchant, and — to thoroughly clean them —
they should be washed in water, left to dry for some
days, then well shaken out in a thin muslin bag, and also
well aired. The reasons for this kind of pillow are its
cleanliness, and the fact that it is much cooler and
wholesomer than either wool, down, or feathers. In
Germany, children sleep on a husk pillow till they are
seven or eight years old, and later in cases of illness.
The coolness of this pillow and mattress is particularly
essential, because the babies are never held in the arms
of mother or nurse except when they are being fed.
This is an important factor in the nursery management,
especially in houses without many servants, as it makes
the nurse or mother so much freer to do all that she has
to do. Small babies are far too much nursed, as a rule,

238 MORE POT-POURRI

in England ; a child is trained from the first by the
monthly nurse to lie constantly on her knee, whereas,
abroad, the first thing done from the very beginning is
to train a baby to be perfectly content in its cot. And
when the weather is fine and it goes out, it is never
carried or wheeled about before it is seven or eight
months old. It lies for hours in the open air as in a
bed. It is very important that children of all ages
should sleep on a hard, flat bed, and that mattresses
should be re -made whenever they get hollow. I believe
that neglect of this is the cause of many round shoulders
and weak spines. A husk pillow (which can be made of
dried and pounded bracken Fern if the husks of oats
are not available) is also used for washing a baby, on a
method which I think both safer and easier than our
English way. There is a large, plain deal table, three
sides of which are surrounded by a rim as in our wooden
washstands. On the right and left of this table is placed
everything the nurse is likely to require for washing the
baby. On a little table next to this big one is a basket
with the clothes. In the middle of the large table is
placed the above-mentioned pillow, covered with a piece
of mackintosh sheeting, over which is laid a large bath
towel. On this is placed the little naked baby, and it is
then the superior advantage of this system over the
English one becomes apparent. No one can see it done
without appreciating how much less experienced the
mother or nurse need be, as both hands are left free to
soap and sponge, and wipe and powder. After being
soaped, the baby is dipped, as with us, into the bath, and
immediately laid back again on the pillow, where it looks
like one of the little Christian 'bambinos' in sugar or
plaster, which used to be sold in Italy at Christmas time.
The child is wrapped in the bath towel and dried.
The mackintosh and towel are then removed, and the

MARCH 239

really difficult process of dressing a very young baby is
safely and easily performed on the pillow. I saw it done
by a young and inexperienced nurserymaid of nineteen,
who certainly could never have been trusted to wash a
baby as we do it in England, and I came away greatly
impressed with the merits of the chaff pillow.

A favourite trick practised by those who have charge
of babies is to cover or nearly cover over their faces, so
that the child breathes its own breath, which all edu-
cated people know is poisonous. When you expostulate,
the nurse says : ' It makes the child sleep better' — which
means the child is more or less asphyxiated by want of
air. This excuse could be urged for anything, even for
giving what, when I was in Canada, I saw advertised
everywhere as'Sirop calmant de Madame Winslow.' The
wretched stuff acquires a new dignity when translated
into French ! Fresh air, night and day, is the great
essential for health ; and, pretty as are babies' veils, I
think the babies are far better without them. All the
same, I saw a lovely little baby's hood last year, made in
a close-fitting way, like an old-fashioned baby's cap,
and over all was thrown a large square of net, hemmed
and run with three rows of satin baby ribbon.

The public mind has been a good deal disturbed and
exercised by the bill, passed in '98, enabling people who
have 'conscientious objections' to be absolved from hav-
ing their children vaccinated. I should like to see all
vaccination voluntary, as it seems to me to be exceed-
ingly likely that the last scientific word on the subject
has not been said. But if it is really for the good of
the community that vaccination should be universally en-
forced, then the 'conscientious objector' is a danger to the
whole community, and should not be allowed to have his
way. Anybody interested in this subject will find, in the
twenty -fourth volume of the ' Encyclopaedia Britannica'

240 MORE POT-POURRI

(ninth edition), an exhaustive article on vaccination,
which, the writer says, is ' the result of an independent
and laborious research.' To me it was interesting and
most instructive. The public now have such glorious
chances of learning the truth, instead of living on false
tradition ; but how few avail themselves of them ! The
statements at the end of the article about the epidemic
of smallpox in 1870-71 are most curious, and certainly
contradict many of the usual medical assertions.

To return to the babies. Anxious young mothers
with delicate infants are nowadays very apt to get hos-
pital nurses to look after them. I am sure that this is a
mistake, and I have known two or three cases amongst
my acquaintances where this was tried and answered ex-
tremely badly. The hospital nurse is apt to be over-
clever, and try far too many things, such as changing
the foods unnecessarily, and using medicines much too
freely. A baby wants ordinary animal care, warmth,
regularity of treatment, and the people who look after
it to have the courage that comes with love. It does not
want remedies which check ailments one day and repro-
duce them the next day with renewed force. Why does
it never strike the mother or nurse, who gives a child —
with absolute courage — a harmful drug, such as fluid
magnesia, that they could try instead such harmless
remedies as spoonfuls of orange -juice, or apples or
prunes rubbed through a sieve ? A doctor told me the
other day that a child brought up on fluid magnesia was
bound to suffer from that troublesome, if not danger-
ous, ailment too well known in most modern nurseries,
chronic constipation.

If a child is very delicate, the mother nervous, and
if no good, experienced children's nurse is to be got,
then I would recommend a monthly nurse ; though, of
course, they too are sometimes difficult to get. There is

MARCH 241

an institution now started, called the Norland Institute,
16 Holland Park Terrace, London, W., and the princi-
pal will send all information if requested. It is for the
training of ladies as children's nurses on Froebelian
principles. I do not know much about it myself, but it
appears to be useful both for employers and employed.
So many women, though willing enough, are unfit for
any employment through want of training, and many
a young woman would be an excellent nurse for young
children who could never make a good governess or
school teacher.

Nursery arrangements are much cleaner now than
they used to be. A well cared -for baby has its little
gums wiped out every day with a soft rag, which is
then burnt. This plan is safer than the soft little bit of
sponge sold for the purpose, as sponges are difficult to
keep perfectly clean, even if well washed and dried.
The following is the receipt for the mixture with which
this should be done, and which makes the baby smack
its lips : Mix one teaspoonful of powdered borax with
two teaspoonfuls of cold water, and add three ounces
of glycerine. Shake the bottle well, and the mixture
is ready for use. In the case of a baby that has been
neglected, and when the mouth has become really bad,
it should be washed out with warm water several times
a day after food.

There is still a strong prejudice in England against
boiling and sterilising milk ; but, in the face of the
recent revelations as regards tuberculosis in cows, I
trust this will become less and less. The German
patents are to be got at all chemists'. Soxhlet's
apparatus is one of the best, I believe, but new steri-
lisers are constantly being brought out ; and, when
once understood, the process gives no more trouble
than any other careful preparation of babies' food.

242 MORE POT-POURRI

To give children and invalids raw milk does seem a
most cruel risk. I know many young people who say
they would rather die than drink boiled milk. If they
were brought up from babyhood on cooked milk, I am
sure that this feeling would disappear. I copy the fol-
lowing extract on this subject of milk -sterilising from
a lecture (published in the 'Journal of State Medicine,'
January, 1899) on 'The Administrative Control of
Tuberculosis/ by Sir Richard Thorne Thorne, Medical
Officer of the Local Government Board, as it interests
and concerns far more people than the mere manage-
ment and health of cows, although this is the chief
point of Sir Richard's clear and admirable lecture.
The extract may seem rather long, but I feel compelled
to copy it, as it may in that way reach homes where
the more scientific periodical may never have been
heard of : ' It is a somewhat curious fact that the
inhabitants of the United Kingdom stand almost alone
amongst civilised nations in the habitual use of un-
cooked milk as food. This is the more to be regretted
because, by reason of this practice, human life, espe-
cially that of infancy and childhood, is being sacrificed
on a scale which, to use the mildest term, is altogether
deplorable. That this should be so is also altogether
unreasonable in the face of the certain knowledge we
possess, and which is set forth in the report of the
Royal Commission of 1890 in the following words :
' ' The most deadly tubercular material can be rendered
absolutely innocuous, in so far as any spreading of
infective disease is concerned, by the action of a tem-
perature at which water boils." And again: "It is
sufficient to state that boiling, for an instant even,
renders the tubercle bacillus absolutely innocuous."
Milk exposed to a temperature of 100° C., whether by
boiling or other form of cooking, will not convey tuber-

MARCH 243

culosis ; and milk sterilised, as by placing it over the
fire in one saucepan, which stands in an outer one
filled with water, until it has reached a temperature of
some 80° C. to 90° C., i.e., 176° F., or perhaps even
less, is an equally innocuous food. And yet, whilst
we have this knowledge at our disposal, and whilst we
know, still further, that some 7,000 persons, mostly
infants, are annually killed in England and Wales by
that form of tuberculosis called "labis mesenterica,"
besides some thousands more by tubercular meningitis
— a cause of tuberculous death which is on the increase
under three months of age, is undergoing no diminu-
tion at the next three months of life, and which ex-
hibits substantial increase during young adult life —
and yet we find people apparently intelligent, including
even heads of young families, who discard the remedy
on the mere ground of "taste." And what is still
more striking and reprehensible is the fact that in
many of our hospitals, established for the cure of dis-
ease, no effort is made to avoid the chance of impart-
ing disease, merely because effort would cause some
inconvenience. The avoidance of all that is septic in
connection with surgical operations stands in striking
contrast with the courting of infection in the wards
by the use of uncooked milk. But even the taste
which attaches to boiled milk, and to which infants
become at once habituated, may be largely avoided if
the milk boiled after the morning delivery be stored
in the cool for use in the afternoon, and if the after-
noon milk be similarly set aside until next morning.

' But some allege another objection. It is maintained
that cooked milk is less nutritious than raw milk. I
admit that there is an element of truth in this. Milk is
a fluid having a biological character; it is living fluid,
and this character is destroyed by boiling or sterilisa-

244 MORE POT-POURRI

tion. From the purely scientific point of view, it is most
desirable to bear this in mind, but in its practical aspect
it is well to remember that the slight diminution in
nutritive value which cooking brings about in milk
cannot be named side by side with the immense gain in
freedom from the risk of infectious disease and death
which is thus insured. . . .' He ends by saying :

' The need for educating the public of this country as
to the risks involved in the use of raw cows' milk, and
as to the simple methods by which these risks can be
effectually avoided, is a pressing one, and it can only be
met by enlisting the active services of my own profes-
sion. Our influence in such matters is necessarily con-
siderable ; our responsibility is correspondingly a heavy
one.'

I should like to know the opinion of the Faculty on
the dangers of butter, cream, and cheese, which I have
never seen mentioned. Butter, however, is now often
made from boiled milk.

Here is a receipt for boiling milk for butter or keep-
ing : Let the milk stand for twelve hours in an open
tin, then put it on the stove and let it just bubble round
the edges. Take it off, let it stand another twelve
hours, and then make the butter.

The popular impression is that separated milk is use-
less as human food. Yet I believe it is now acknowl-
edged by scientific investigators that the nourishing and
life-giving properties of milk remain when the cream is
taken off, the cream containing nothing but the fat. Of
course, to children and many people fat is desirable, but
can be obtained in many other ways.

The newspapers of the last few months have been so
full of this most interesting question of tuberculosis in
cows that it seems almost superfluous to allude to it.
Yet nurseries are so under the power of women who,

MARCH 245

however good and devoted, are uneducated, and there-
fore bigoted in their opinions, that it is as well to
caution young mothers not to yield to what might
seem to them the greater experience of the nurse. I did
it myself, having as my nurse one of the best of women ,
who had brought up several babies. All the same, I
think now I was wrong; but in my youth the rules of
health were in the dark ages compared to what they are
now. To-day every young mother should learn for
herself what is the last and the most approved theory as
'regards food and fresh air. On one subject science and
nature go hand in hand, and lead more and more to the
belief that the only really right nourishment for a baby
is what nature provides. In the 'upper classes' it has
become in my life -time rarer and rarer for young
mothers to nurse their own children. When I was
young the only women who were supposed to be good
wet-nurses were the Irish; and why was this ? Because
they were poorly fed; they came, too, of generations of
poor feeders, and before the days when they could obtain
either meat or tea except in very small quantities. In
France and Germany the wet-nurses always came from
the poor districts, where, as a rule, meat -eating was
unknown; and of late years these women are more and
more difficult to procure, though this may, of course, be
from many reasons other than nature failing to supply
what is required. I believe that if young mothers were
greatly to reduce their ordinary food during the time
before the birth of their children, they would not only
greatly reduce the common suffering which nature has
had to resort to, so as to lessen the food taken, but the
chances of the baby's health after its birth would be
infinitely greater. A large, heavy baby often loses
weight after its birth, especially when the mother cannot
give it natural nourishment. This should not be ; they

246 MORE POT-POURRI

should increase in weight during the first month. I
was always under the impression when young that a
delicate mother, and especially one threatened with con-
sumption, ought on no account to nurse her child. In
the lecture from which I quoted before, Sir Richard
Thome Thorne says that 'there is no sterilising appa-
ratus that can give results comparable with those
provided by nature in the healthy female breast, and
that tuberculosis in the human milk glands is a disease
so rare that it hardly needs consideration in connection
with the feeding of infants. At the child-bearing age
it is all but unknown.' I extract this because I think
it will help many a young mother to fight the opposition
of perhaps both her husband and the doctor, who may
be thinking, as is natural, more of what they consider
good for her than for the child.

I heard yesterday, in our village, an excellent lecture
by a young mother on what she called the ' New Educa-
tion.' I agreed with every word, and had myself tried
to carry it out many years ago. It is sad that what she
propounded has made so little way these five-and-
twenty or thirty years. Her recommendations were
much on the lines of a book first published in 1868,
called 'Essays on Educational Reformers,7 by Robert
Herbert Quick. I only did not mention this book
before, much as it interested me years ago, and much as
I admire it still, because I thought it was out of print
and not to be got. Now it is republished by Longmans,
Green & Co., in a cheap edition (2s. 3d.) and arranged
on a clearer plan. Get it, you young mothers, and read
it. It is the most comprehensive and illuminating book
that I have ever seen on the all -important subject. It is
far better known in America than in England. The
chapter on Pestalozzi is perhaps especially excellent.
Nature should be helped by art, and art should come to

MARCH 247

the assistance of nature. After showing how children
can only learn in their own way, he ends with, 'Of
course I do not mean there is no education for children,
however young ; but the school is the mother's knee,
and the lessons learnt there are other and more valuable
than object lessons.7 He goes on to say : ' The mother
is qualified, and qualified by the Creator himself, to
become the principal agent in the development of her
child . . . and what is demanded of her is a
thinking love . . .' Is it not almost fearful how
many children grow up without any thinking love at all ?
Is there anything more pathetic in three lines than
these — by Blake — or more terribly true ? Think of all
the half-castes all over the world, not to mention our
own cities !

The Angel that presided o'er my birth

Said, ' Little creature, formed of joy and mirth,

Go, live without the help of anything on earth.'

It is the non- understanding of children makes the
difficulty. The following poem by Mrs. Deamer will give
a stab, I think, to many a young mother. Maternal love
often wants cultivating, and does not come naturally to
many young women ; of this I am sure. And, though
they learn many things, they seem to think being a good
mother comes by instinct or not at all. This is not true.
Besides, the apparently devoted mother may want quite
as much training and self-cultivation as the indifferent
one ; perhaps more so, as she takes more responsibility
on herself, and so, possibly, deprives the child of being
looked after by someone else.

I think the world is really sad, —

I can do nothing but annoy ;
For little boys are all born bad,

And I am born a little boy.

248 MORE POT-POURRI

It doesn't matter what the game,
Whether it's Indians, trains, or ball;

I always know I am to blame,
If I amuse myself at all.

I said one day, on mother's knee:
' If you would send us right away
To foreign lands across the sea,
You wouldn't see us every day.

'We shouldn't worry any more

In those strange lands with queer new toys ;

But here we stamp, and play, and war,
And wear your life out with our noise.

' The savages would never mind,

And you'd be glad to have us go
There; nobody would be unkind,
For you dislike your children so»'

Then mother turned and looked quite red,
I do not think she could have heard ;

She put me off her knee instead
Of answering me a single word.

She went, and did not even nod.

What had I said that could annoy T
Mothers are really very odd

If you are born a little boy.

I could go on quoting for ever from Mr. Quick's
book, but why should I, when it is within reach of all ?
His last sentence is : ' The duty of each generation is
to gather up the inheritance from the past, and then
to serve the present and prepare better things for the
future.' How can there be a better motto for young
or old?

The kindergarten system, when well carried out,
seems to be the best method of teaching children
under seven, and a kindergarten child has more
thoughtful independence than other children. I once

MARCH 249

tried to make a boy of five clean his teeth, but he was
rebellious that night, and, in an unguarded moment, I
said he must. So after standing some time beside him,
I said : ' I do not know how long you mean to keep me
here, but I can't give in now I have said you must.'
The child answered quite calmly : 'Well, it is odd,
mother, you should say that, as it is exactly what I
feel.' And then we came in some way to an amiable
compromise which hurt no one's dignity. It is so
idiotic, in the management of children, to give direct
orders which they do not understand, and which ap-
pear to them as unreasonable tyranny. A mother had
better command by example, not by authority. Sub-
jection and blind obedience are all wrong, and result
from quite a mistaken idea of the evolution of the
universe. 'Every human being has a claim to a judi-
cious development of his faculties by those to whom
the care of his infancy is confided.'

Teeth cleaning of children used to be thought rather
an unnecessary tyranny. It has assumed different pro-
portions now, and it ought to be seen to in all schools.
A great many people will be surprised to learn that often
would-be recruits are rejected on the ground of bad
teeth. It is no better with officers, and cases are
common in which candidates, after an expensive prep-
aration, have failed to pass their 'medical' on account
of deficient dentures. In an examination of 10,000 of
British children, of an average age of twelve years,
eighty -five per cent required operative treatment. One
more example that the ordinary food of the present day
is not conducive to the health of the human race.
Improvement in teeth and gums is one of the most
marked and satisfactory symptoms experienced by peo-
ple who take to the health -giving food recommended by
Dr. Haig.

250 MORE POT-POURRI

I find, among my old letters, this anecdote of a young
mother trying to give religions instruction to a delicate

little girl of two and a half : ' M is a sweetly good,

dear child and in better spirits than usual, which is a
good sign. I was trying the other day to convey some

of a Creator to her mind. She started with
i — that nobody made the trees, etc. Having
made her understand her clothes must be made, and
dinner prepared by somebody, she seemed to accept the
notion of "God" with a long-drawn "Oh I'- And when
I said he was a long way off, in the beautiful sky, she
said quickly: "What a bore!" I asked: "Why?"
She answered: "Me like to see God, mamma." In
caught up some notion of a good fellow who
everything that was good and beautiful, and has
told me ever since : " Dod made the trees, the sun and
the noon, and all the pitty things." So I natter myself
she is on the fair road to deism. Christianity must
dawn upon her mind by very slow degrees, poor little
infant ! But she is so loving and gentle she is no bad
exemplification of " Of such is the kingdom of Heaven,"
and I am very dotingly fond of her.' I think if this
fond mother had given the love without attempting the
merely teaching the child to admire and

and love, she would have been more sensibly
employed in fitting it for its future life than in trying
to explain and expound deism or Christianity at so early
an age.

I knew, years ago, two conscientious young parents,
both equally religions, who stayed away themselves from
going to church, which they loved, in order, as they said,
to break the temper of their little daughter, aged two
and a half. As I said before, temper, which is inborn
and haifditnj, should never be fought, but always
treated with love, gentleness, and tenderness, as an ill-

MARCH 251

ness. Temper cannot be conquered, except from within.
To help the child to help itself, that is the only method.
I do not really believe that punishment ever does any
good to old or young, though self -mortification helps
many natures. Prisons rank with mad -houses ; they
exist to protect the public, not to benefit the individuals
who suffer punishment. The only way with children is
gradually to get them to see what most helps themselves.
I admit that to understand the way children's minds
work is a humiliatingly difficult task, and one cannot be
too careful not to shock their feelings by either laughing
at them or letting them see any contempt for their most
natural ignorance. There is a well-known story of a
little girl who, having been naughty, was told to ask
forgiveness of the Almighty in her evening prayers.
The next morning, when questioned as to whether she
had done so, she quietly answered : 'Oh yes, but Dod

said : " Don't mention it, Miss B " ' !

In a letter on some remarks about children in my
first book, a most kind and able woman wrote to me as
follows : ' The only point on which I do not quite agree
with you is where you say you cannot judge of a child's
character before twelve. When I look back to my early
childhood, I can see how exactly I and my brothers and
sisters were as little children what we are to-day. What
I do think is that, from about twelve to twenty -two or
three, or even twenty -eight, a certain deflection takes
place ; but as one fully develops, one returns to what
one was as a little child. I know that I am to-day far
more like what I was at seven years old than what I was
at sixteen. The child is father to the man, not to the
youth. Of course you must be keen enough to read the
child's character. Children are such mysterious things
that few grownup people, even those who are keen read-
ers of adult character, can understand them.'

252 MORE POT-POURRI

So far as I understand what is called 'the new
education,' it does not mean knowledge teaching at all,
but the developing and fostering the good qualities that
are born in a child, and so keeping under the evil pro-
pensities which are equally born in it. In fact, to make
grow and develop what is actually there in the best way
you can ; not try to cram in, as into an empty sack,
what you think ought to be there.

Some years ago the 'Pall Mall Gazette ' used, from
time to time, to contain charming original articles on
various subjects. Among my cuttings I find the follow-
ing, so true to child life that I think it will rejoice every-
one who cares to understand children. This study is
really only just beginning to be approached, as it should
be, with the humility that belongs to great ignorance
and non- understanding :

'It has often been remarked that one half of the
world does not know how the other half lives, but it is
curious enough that this should be the fact about a half
of the world who share our homes, who occupy our
thoughts, and who possess our hearts, perhaps, more
entirely than do any other earthly objects.

' The world in which our children really move and
live is as remote and unvisited by us as the animal
kingdom itself, and it is only now and then that a
chance glimpse into the working of their minds makes
us realise the gulf that separates us. They can come to
us, but we cannot go to them ; nor are they, indeed,
without that touch of contempt for us and our affairs
which might naturally be considered the exclusive privi-
lege of the elder and stronger beings. "Don't disturb
poor father; he is reading his papers," is a sort of
counterpart to "Oh, let them play; they are doing no
harm." When we cast a reminiscent glance over our
own childhood we realise how solitary were its hopes and

MARCH 253

its occupations, shared at most by one of our own age —
a sister, a brother, or a friend. The elders appear from
time to time as the di ex machind of our existence, for
redress or for deliverance. We remember them as
teachers, as purveyors of pleasure, often as separators
of companions and terminators of delights, but rarely as
sharers in our most exquisite amusements. " What will
mother say?" had about it a half -gleeful anticipation of
disapproval, seldom destined to be unfulfilled ; and that
not because of any severity on the part of the parent,
but from a radical want of sympathy with the first prin-
ciples of enjoyment. Wet, dirt, fatigue, a very little
danger, late hours — all were in themselves positive
pleasures, and with some this flavour lingers till far on
in life ; but, as a rule, you cannot depend upon a grown-
up person not really preferring to be warm and dull and
dry, to any discomforts you can offer him.

' Then what a strange twilight reigns in children's
minds ! What dim mysterious associations of words
and phrases lost to us through the garish light of gram-
mar, or of a clear and positive orthography ! Now and
then across the years comes a memory of difficulties
never guessed at by anyone but ourselves. How sur-
prising it was to hear of people with broken arms or
legs, which members nevertheless were not visibly sev-
ered from their persons nor lying on the floor, as in the
more rational world of dolldom ! And what mysterious
and terrible fate did "being killed on the spot " signify?
What spot, or, rather, which spot ? for we invariably
referred it to some bodily blemish of our own.

' Holy Writ, of course, offered countless problems to
the imagination, and so did the services of the church.
The collects were fraught with a meaning their authors
never dreamed of. "The ills which the devil Orman
worketh against us" referred, we knew well enough, to

254 MORE POT-POURRI

the deadly practices of some bottled Jinn or Efreet ;
and one companion has since confessed that the Pontius
Pilate alluded to by the congregation every Sunday was
for him the Bonchurch pilot, strayed into strange com-
pany, no doubt, but one with whom he had established
friendly relations during the week. " Keep thy servant
from consumptious sins," we said devoutly, for doubt-
less a consumptious sin was connected remotely with the
storeroom.

'What confusion must have reigned in the mind of
the white -robed infant we once heard murmuring at his
mother's knee the following invocation :

Tiger, tiger, burning bright,.

Through the darkness be thou near me !

And how fortunate that prayer is not always directly
answered ! The words our children use are generally
direct and picturesque, coined with a view to their
expressive value. We know few terms more felicitous
than "a sash -pain," by which a child (the sex is
evident) was in the habit of alluding to one of the ills to
which flesh is heir. A "rocking-bed" is a better name
than a hammock, and a "worm-pool" is evidently the
Early Saxon rendering of a whirl -pool, or why should
you be in danger of being sucked down by it ? A " poor
wheeler" delicately suggests the moral inferiority of
square cabs to hansoms. What can be better than a
child's definition of drawing: "First you think about
something, and then you draw a line round your
think"?

' Sometimes their utterances betray character, as of the
little boy who, when the tiger's growls behind the sofa
had become too realistic for human endurance, burst
forth with "Mother! mother! don't growl so loud;
it frightens granny"] or the self-conscious infant who

MARCH 255

rushed to leave the lion -house at the Zoo because, he
said, "the lion is peeping at baby" — as if that wide-eyed
majesty were conscious of anything nearer than some
Libyan desert visible to his mental gaze. Often they are
questions to confound the wise. "Mother, does anyone
have to-morrow before us ? and will they use to-day when
we've done with it? " has a flavour of oriental wisdom
about it difficult to meet. Most grandparents can supply
you with genuine expressions and utterances drawn from
nursery life, and they are willing to do so on the smallest
encouragement ; it is in them that children find their
most intelligent sympathisers. We noticed two of the
most distinguished men of the present day in deep and
confidential discourse at a state entertainment in Lon-
don the other season. To the superficial observer they
appeared to be settling the affairs of the nation, but in
reality they were capping stories about their respective
youngest grandchildren, and their confidences lasted
long and late.

' It seems strange that with an inexhaustible field of
observation open to everyone, the children of fiction
should not be more lifelike and less sentimental than is
usually the case ; but the subject is one that might be
indefinitely pursued.

' Memory, it is true, is apt to play us false when we
try to reenter the realms of our youth'; but few of us
seem ever to have listened at the nursery door, or to have
looked through the eyes of childhood into the make-
believe world it inhabits.'

I knew a little boy once who used to go out into
Hyde Park when the soldiers were exercising, and on
his return give long and detailed accounts of the real
battles he had seen. His elder and less imaginative
brother would stand by in silent amazement at what
seemed to him absolute untruths. The child, in away,

256 MORE POT-POURRI

knew he had not seen what he described, and yet, as he
had seen with the eye of imagination, it was real and
true to him.

Here is a little child's song, the words by E. Nesbit,
set to music by Liza Lehmann. I think it charming,
and so illustrative of the kind of imagination children
have, knowing quite well that what they think is not the
actual fact, though true to them:

When my good-nights and pray'rs are said

And I am safe tucked up in bed,

I know my Guardian Angel stands

And holds my soul between his hands.

I cannot see his wings of light

Because I keep my eyes shut tight,

For if I open them I know

My pretty angel has to go.

But through the darkness I can hear

His white wings rustling very near.

I know it is his darling wings,

Not mother folding up my things.

I never refuse to name anything I like when I am
told 'Everyone knows that,7 for 'everyone' is a very
limited London circle, where bright, pretty things come
like beautiful bubbles, are seen by what is called 'every-
body,' and are gone in a moment. I think of my kind
unknown friends who are far away bearing the white
woman's burden, and who have written to me saying
they enjoyed the little breath of home my last book
brought them. They may not have seen or heard what
I have, and even here in Surrey I find that often the
thing that 'everyone knows' does not even reach the next
parish.

March 3rd.— This is the first year I have forced
Spiraea confusa, and it makes a lovely pot -plant. We
left it out in the cold till the middle of January. In

MARCH 257

forcing all hardy things, that is the great secret, — send
them to sleep as early as you can by taking them up and
exposing them to cold. All plants must have their rest;
they are not like Baron Humboldt and his night of two
hours. The leaves of this Spiraea are a blue-graj^, and
the branches are wreathed with miniature 'May blos-
soms.' Alas ! they do not do well picked and in water.

I am sure, for anyone who wants to force coloured
Hyacinths, only the very best bulbs are worth while,
especially when single flowers are preferred, as in my
case. They are so sweet in the house that I think they
are worth the trouble of growing and the expense of
buying annually. I got last autumn a larger and later
flowering kind of white Hyacinth from Van Tubergen,
called 'Italian Hyacinths,' single ones and quite cheap.
They have come on splendidly. They are something like
the early Roman ones, only far larger and stronger. They
flower much later and are of an accentuated white, well
worth growing, and I think they will do out of doors
next year or the year after. Two newly bought Staphylea
colchica are looking lovely now in the greenhouse, and
also a bought plant of white Lilac is covered with
bloom. We must cut them all back hard after flower-
ing, plant them out, and give them a year's rest ; then I
hope they will do again. lAbonia floribunda is also a
very pretty little greenhouse plant at this time of year.
This is the time to pot up some rested plants of Sweet
Verbena, and put them into the warmest house to
start their growth. They soon come into leaf, and are
then best in the ordinary cool house. This gives plenty
of Verbena for early picking.

March 8th. — The lion -like character of the weather
is softening, and all the little spring things begin to
come through. Each day makes a difference, but the
delightful feeling of new life is already everywhere.

258 MORE POT-POURRI

Our reason tells us this is because nature has been
asleep, not dead. There is no mistake about the poor
really dead plants ; we know them too well. Early
spring here is not beautiful at all ; it is dry and
shrivelled and hard -looking, not like the neighbourhood
of my old home by the Hertfordshire millstream.

The white Alyssum, the common Pulmonaria, and
the Wallflowers are all coming into flower. I feel more
and more sure that mixed borders ought not to be dug
up in autumn, as gardeners — especially gardeners new
to a place — are so fond of doing ; in that way half the
best things get lost. The best way is to replant, or
dig out large pieces and divide each plant if it wants
it after flowering and before they quite die down. The
white Alyssum and the Pulmonarias both do better
under the slight protection of shrubs than quite in the
open border, where the cold winds catch them.

My two large old Camellias planted out last autumn,
well under a Holly, and facing north, are doing well,
and one has three bright rosy red blooms. It remains
to be seen how they will do next year. It is a pleasure
to think Camellias do better in London gardens than
almost any other evergreens, and only want well plant-
ing in peat and leaf-mould, and well syringing and
watering in the spring. But there also they must have
the protection of other shrubs, to hang over their tops
and keep off the spring frosts.

A semi -double Azalea for the greenhouse, called
Deutsche Perle, was given me the other day, and is a
charming greenhouse plant. The flower has something
of the appearance of a Gardenia, but it has no scent.

I have had two real good days' gardening, and have
tried to carry out some of Miss JekylPs hints, even in
this commonplace, every -day garden. I have pulled
down some of the climbing Roses, to let them make low-

MARCH 259

growing bushes ; for it is so true that, as she says,
when planted on a pergola all their beauty is only for
the bird as it flies. In the lanes, too, I saw some of the
wild Arum leaves, and got out of the carriage to get
some. Having no garden -gloves or knife with me, I
ran my finger down into the soft, leafy mould to gather
them with the white stalk underground. I trust these
will rejoice an invalid friend in London to-morrow.
One gets almost tired of the mass of flowers in London
now, and things that smell of ditches and hedgerows are
what one values most.

March 9th. — Odontoglossum Bossii major is a charm-
ing little Orchid to hang up in a shallow pan in a
greenhouse when in flower. I am getting to like Orchids
more and more now that, instead of thinking of them in
their hot glass palaces, the easy -growing ones are
treated here like other greenhouse plants. They give
me great pleasure ; the flowers are beautiful and
interesting to look into and examine. I must learn
more about them. In all things concerning nature, it is
only ignorance that makes us take likes and dislikes.

This is the first spring morning. How one appre-
ciates the slightest rise in the temperature ! I quite
pity those who have rushed south, and who cannot
watch the slow development of our English spring, with
all its many disappointments.

The bright yellow flowers of the improved Tussilago
Coltsfoot, sold by Cannel, are now just coming out, and
the gravelly corner where they grow is a bright mass of
buds. These flowers that come before their leaves, like
the autumn crocus, are attractive, though the size of
their leaves, when they do come, puts one sometimes out
of conceit with them, especially if crowded for room ;
though it is astonishing how corners can be found in
even small gardens for all sorts of things, if one gives

260 MORE POT-POURRI

the matter constant attention. Having everything under
one's eye, one never forgets to notice how they get on ;
the greatest danger for the beds and shrubberies is the
forking -over in autumn. It is far better left alone, if
it cannot be done with care and knowledge.

My little plant of the Daphne blagayana is now in
flower, but none of the Daphnes do well here for long ;
even the mezereum goes off after a year or two, and
D. cneorum wants constant attention. D. blagayana has
to be grown like D, cneorum, pegged down in peat, and
with some low-growing plant to shade it. All Daphnes
are well worth the care they need, but it is a hard
struggle. I think the spring air is too dry for them.

The best gardeners tell me we ought to be able to get
Irises during eight or nine months of the year, and that
this is done by keeping back Japanese Irises with their
toes in the water till October. I confess I have never
seen any Kcempferi in bloom after the end of July in
this part of the world.

I have lately been given this most useful list for the
blooming time of Irises : February and March, Iris
stylosa (blue and white varieties), I. reticulata, I.
unguicularis alba, I. persica, I. histrioides ; March and
April, I. pumila atropurpurea, I. pumila ccerulea, I.
backeriana, I. tuberosa, I. orchioides, I. assyriaca ;
May, florentina; May and June, German and Spanish
and I. sibirica ; July and August, English and
Japanese.

I have had the ground prepared, and to-day I am
sowing the Shirley and other Poppies and Sweet Peas.
Early sowing of early summer annuals is most essential
here. I see Miss Jekyll holds much to autumn sowing.
I have tried it, and failed in some cases, but that is
because I have done it too late in the autumn. Early
sowing is the only plan of spring sowing that is at all

MARCH 261

successful here. This particular first week in March,
1899, is perfection for all gardening work. I never saw
the ground in such a good state — pulverised by night
frosts, without being too dry and dusty. The garden-
ing papers say there has not been such a sunny
February for thirty years.

The paper of instructions sent out by the secretary of
the Royal Horticultural Society with the seed of the
Shirley Poppy is so excellent, and such a help for many
annuals, that I cannot do better than copy it. One of
the reasons people fail with hardy annuals is, as I said
before, from not sowing them early enough :

' 1. On as early a day as possible in February choose
a plot of ground sixteen to eighteen feet square or there-
abouts, give it a liberal dressing of rich dung, and dig
it in well, and leave it to settle.

' 2. For sowing, choose the first fine, open day in
March, free from actual frost, when the ground works
easily, and rake the surface over.

' 3. Mix the seed with five or six times its own bulk
of dry sand, so as to make it easier to sow it thinly.

'4. Scatter the mixture thinly, broadcast, over the
raked surface, and rake it again lightly.

' 5. When the seedlings are large enough to handle,
if there should be any bare patches in the bed, move
with the tip of a trowel a few tiny clumps from where
they stand thickest.

' 6. As soon as the bed shows regularly green, stretch
two lines across it parallel to each other, at eight inches
apart and, with a Dutch hoe, hoe up all between the
lines, sparing those plants only that are close to each
line. Move the lines and so hoe all the bed, which will
then consist of a number of thin lines of seedlings eight
inches apart, and the hoed -up ones lying between.

1 7. About a week later stretch the lines again eight

262 MORE POT-POURRI

inches apart, at right angles to the previous lines, and
hoe again. This, when finished, will leave a number of
tiny square patches of seedlings eight inches apart
each way.

* 8. A week later thin out the little patches by hand,
leaving only one plant in each. Now every plant will
have eight inches square to grow in.

' 9. Directly the plant shows the first sign of running
up to blossom, put a thin line of two -feet -high pea-
sticks between every two, or at most every three, lines
of the plants to strengthen them to resist the wind and
rain. They will soon grow above and hide the sticks.

'10. In dry weather thoroughly soak the bed once a
week. A little sprinkle overhead is no use.

' N. B. — Be sure the operation described in No. 6 is
done early enough ; otherwise the plants will have
become "leggy" before your thinning is complete, and
when once Poppies become ' ' leggy, ' ' they are prac-
tically ruined.'

March 14th. — My garden is now full of the old wild
Sweet Violet {Viola odorata) of our youth — before even
the 'Czars' came in, much less the giant new kinds. I
have an immense affection for this Violet, with its
beautiful, intense colour and its delicate perfume. It
grew all about the Hertfordshire garden under the
hedges, and little seedlings started up in the gravel
paths, looking bold and defiant ; but, all the same, they
were rooted out by the gardener when summer tidying
began. At the end of March or early in April, when
the rain comes, I divide up and plant little bits of these
Violets everywhere, and they grow and flourish and
increase under Gooseberry bushes and Currant bushes,
along the palings covered with Blackberries, under
shrubs — anywhere, in fact — and there they remain,
hidden and shaded and undisturbed all the summer.

MARCH 263

Where seedlings appear, they are let alone all the sum-
mer and autumn till after flowering time in spring.
They look lovely and brave these cold, dry, March
days ; but their stalks are rather short here, for want of
moisture. If anyone wants to see this Violet to perfec-
tion, let him chance to be in Rome early in March, as I
once was, and let him go to the old English cemetery,
where Keats lies buried, and the heart of Shelley, and
he will see a never-to-be-forgotten sight — the whole
ground blue with the Violets, tall and strong above
their leaves, the air one sweet perfume, and the sound
(soft and yet distinct) of the murmur of spring bees.

Just at this time we rake off the winter mulching
that has covered the Asparagus beds, water them well
with liquid manure, and salt them when the rain comes.
March 16th. — As the seasons come round, the
changes often recall to my mind certain verses in
' Bethia Hardacre's' volume. Such tender, loving ver-
sions of some of nature's facts are there, and I go out
to verify them. The garden now is one mass of
Crocuses, Violets, fading Snowdrops and bursting
Daffies ; and this is how the flower -chain is described
by her :

Blossoms, meet to mourn the dead,

On each season's grave are spread :

Lilies white and Roses red

O'er dead Spring are canopied ;

Eoses, in their latest bloom,

Blazen golden Summer's tomb;

Stealthy showers of petals fall

At still Autumn's funeral;

But the darlings of the year

Strew rude Winter's sepulchre..

Scarce a flower does Winter own ;
Of four seasons he alone
Scarce a bud does to him take —
Barren for the future's sake,

264 MORE POT-POURRI

Well content to none possess ;
And Sweet Violets — faithfulness —
And White Snowdrops — innocence —
Are in death his recompense ;
And these darlings of the year
Strew rude Winter's sepulchre.

March 20ih. — Of all the many catalogues I receive,
none, I think, are produced with anything like the
attractive intelligence of the one sent out by Messrs.
Ware, of Tottenham. This year one is tempted to say,
from the pretty European -Japanese drawing on the
cover, that nature made a mistake in not giving us
sometimes an all-over pink sky instead of a blue ! The
soil at Tottenham is very heavy, and plants that nourish
admirably there, from my experience, unfortunately
decline altogether to grow when removed to a purer air
and a lighter soil. I am sure that all amateurs who are
interested in the rarer varieties of hardy and half-hardy
plants had far better try and raise them themselves from
seed. But a visit to Messrs. Ware's garden, near
London, as well as constantly going to Kew, will show
amateurs what can be done. The old-fashioned idea
that a garden meant a place of quiet and repose is not
the proper mental attitude for suburban plant -culti-
vators. The drawings in the catalogue are excellent,
though they perhaps rather represent the cultivator's
expectations than the truth. Still, it is well to have
high ideals, even in annuals and biennials. To return
to my catalogue — no one can give time and study to it
without being the wiser.

In spite of all my resolutions to stay at home, I have
a very great longing to go once more to the ' Riviera, '
and see some of the really good gardens which have
grown up since my time, especially that of ' La Mortola,
Italy,' belonging to Commendatore Hanbury. Last

MARCH 265

year, with his help and permission, a little book came
out which was a great success, and quickly ran out of
print ; it was called ' Riviera Nature Notes.' A book of
great interest to us who are only English gardeners,
what would it be to those who are his neighbours on
those sunny slopes ? The first line in the book is :
' J'observe et je suis la nature ; c'est mon secret pour
etre heureux' (Florian).

Can we hear this truth too often in prose and poetry
and in all art ! I have always thought one of the most
beautiful of Burne- Jones' early pictures is the one
which represents the wild god — Pan — lovingly receiv-
ing poor little Psyche, thrown up by the river that
refused to drown her. And does it not mean that nature
from all time has been the best comforter for one of the
greatest of human sorrows, unrequited love ?

These ' Riviera Notes ' are full of desultory but most
interesting information. How delightful to read them
in a dry Olive yard or under an umbrella Pine, with the
blue sea behind the tree's rich stem ! Or, when too
warm to walk so far, to sit below the Orange trees,
whose tops above one's head are masses of golden fruit
and sweet -smelling flowers ! At the end of the book are
chapters on birds, insects, and the 'Riviera' traces of that
individual — apparently so much alike in all countries —
prehistoric man. Were they happy, those dim mysteri-
ous multitudes of the Old Stone and New Stone ages ?
This little book must have delighted many, as it
delighted me ; and it is not too difficult for anyone as
ignorant as I am to understand. As it bears on my
favourite topic, I must quote from this book the fact that
'polenta,' or Indian corn porridge, is the chief food of
the Piedmontese, and I observe it is also stated that they
do the hard manual labour at 'La Mortola.' They work
all about the country as navvies, porters, and so forth,

266 MORE POT-POURRI

which proves that, at any rate, this food does not make
them unmuscular. They are powerfully made men, and
the Nicois are ludicrously afraid of them, for they con-
sider them capable of any act of violence. It is also
said that these Piedmontese suffer from a disease called
the 'pellagra,' caused by living on this polenta, 'one of
the least nourishing of the farinaceous foods.' May it
not be the food mixed with some form of alcohol ? It
appears as if some disease belonged to every kind of food
eaten without variety and in large quantities.

Mr. Barr gave me, two years ago, some small bulbs
of Crocus tommasinianus . I thought at first they were
going to do nothing ; but this year they have flowered
beautifully, and are of a very delicate pale lavender
colour. He says they will come up every year, and I
think they are really far prettier than the large, strong,
cultivated Crocuses. I have often been asked, What
should be put into Rose beds to enliven their dull
branchiness for early spring ? Strong clumps of winter
Aconites planted very deep, to be succeeded, when the
Aconites are only bright green tufts of leaves, by large,
pale Crocuses, white and light lavender, are as good a
combination as I know; and when they die down a fresh
top-dressing can be lightly forked into the Roses with-
out hurting the bulbs.

A correspondent noticed that I did not mention
Anemone Pulsatilla. It is quite true I have not got it.
In my ignorant days I bought it once or twice, and it
quickly died ; and I have not yet tried to grow it from
seed, but shall do so this year. This correspondent
writes from Gloucestershire, where he says it grows wild,
and that, when well grown, ' it is the most beautiful
native plant we have.' His letter is dated March 9th,
and he adds: 'I have one now in a twelve-inch pan,
taken up about three weeks ago, which has about 150

MARCH 267

flowers and buds on it. Like Lilies -of -the -Valley, it
grows in the poorest and dryest lime soil. But it likes
good feeding. I think that description sounds as if it
were worth trouble to produce. Of course he meant,
when he took it up, that he grew it under glass.

Two years ago I bought a plant of Holbcellia lati-
folia, and planted it in the ground in my cool green-
house, where it is doing quite beautifully, and is now
covered with buds. It is a delightful plant for a cool
greenhouse creeper, as the fragrance of its white flowers
is delicious, almost exactly like Orange flower ; and it is
so nearly hardy it will do out of doors against a wall in
many parts of England. I shall try it here when I have
struck some cuttings. It is often called, erroneously,
Stauntonia latifolia.

I have just brought into the conservatory next the
drawing-room from the cool house in the kitchen garden
an interesting panful of one of the Moraaas. They seem
a large family ; all from the Cape of Good Hope. A
piece was given me by someone who called it M. fimbri-
ata. It has not been touched for two years, and was
well baked all the summer, is now healthy and growing,
and has four bloom -spikes ; last year it only threw up
one. The flower is like a small, delicate Iris, of a lovely
cold china -blue colour. The growth is quite different
from that of an Iris. The stalk has a graceful bend,
and a branching end with several buds, as is the case
with so many of the Cape bulbs. The buds open one
after the other as the flower dies. They will do when
picked and in water. My Crinum Moorei I have had for
three or four years in a large pot. It makes its leaves
in February, and throws up without fail its enormous
brown flower -stem. It is beginning to open now its
lily -like flowers ; these, like the buds of the Morcea
fimbriata, flower in succession, but, as each one lasts

268 MORE POT-POURRI

about a week in bloom, the flowering period is extended
for a considerable time. It is well fed, while growing,
with liquid manure. Its healthy, strong appearance and
delicate scent give me a great deal of pleasure year by
year.

Mustard and Cress, much grown in boxes in early
spring, and which is so delicious at five o'clock tea or.
with bread and butter and cheese, many people will not
eat because it is so often gritty. This certainly makes it
horrid ; and if the Cress is washed it makes it very wet,
often without getting rid of the grit. The best way to
grow it is to make the earth very damp before sowing,
press it down flat, and then sow the seed very lightly on
the top, making a division between the Mustard and the
Cress. Cover it with a tile, or something else to make
it dark, till it has sprouted, and then cut it carefully,
straight into the plate or small fancy basket in which it
is to be served, without washing it at all. If grown in
this way and carefully cut, there will be no grit what-
ever. I find small, low, round Japanese baskets of vari-
ous sizes (from Liberty's) are most useful in a house
with a garden. They are beautifully made and very
pretty, and fruit can be picked into them at once, and
served either at breakfast or luncheon without any fin-
gering in the pantry or kitchen.

March 28th. — Towards the end of this month, or
quite the beginning of next, it is most important to erect
shelters under walls or trees, where the sides can be
protected from wind and the top covered up on cold
nights, as now is the time it is so important to clear out
greenhouses, both for the sake of the hardier plants that
are going out, and the more special ones that remain
inside. When they are moving, feeling the spring in all
their fibres, that is the time they begin to get weak and
drawn up if not given room and air. This is especially

MARCH 269

the case with the large old Geraniums that are in the
greenhouse, Carnations, Abutilons, not to mention all
the forced things that have done flowering. Putting
them out under these shelters hardens them off well
before they are planted out in the open. Nothing is
more distressing to a real plant -lover than to see bulbs
and Spirasas and Azaleas lying about untended, just
after they have done their work so valiantly for us early
in the year. If a plant is not worth care, it is not worth
keeping. Throw it away at once, where it goes to make
food for future generations, and the pot is useful when
many pots are wanted. As I said before, but remind
now, pieces of corrugated iron come in most usefully in
making these temporary pens and shelters. For some
plants, a sunk pit with a raised rim of brick or turf
answers well. On this the sheets of iron are laid at
night.

March 30th.— At this time last year I wrote in my
notebook that the cold and tempestuous weather, which
had lasted the whole of March, moderated a little, and so
I drove to the lovely wild garden in this neighbourhood,
which is always so full of interest to me the whole year
round.

One of the most striking things in the garden was a
plant of Daphne Uagayana. I asked how they managed
to flower so well what I found so difficult, and was told
this Daphne had been protected with a wire hencoop
covered with green canvas, which keeps out six or seven
degrees of frost. The Adonis vernalis was out much
earlier than mine, but the garden is damper and more
sheltered. A. vernalis is a beautiful spring flower, but
it dislikes being moved. There must be some difficulty,
I suppose, about its cultivation, as one so seldom sees it.
The Chionodoxas were the finest and largest I have
; ever seen, and were called Allenii. The true Anemone

270 MORE POT-POURRI

fulgens grcecii was a more brilliant colour than the ordi-
nary one. I imagine it is rather difficult to get. A
blue Chilian Crocus I had never seen before ( Tecophilcea
cyaneo) is slightly tender and requires protection. It was
out of doors in this sheltered wood, and had only been
protected with a handglass. Forsythia intermedia is one
of the best, and was flowering well. For anyone who
has a damp, shady wood, there are no shrubs more
beautiful than the various Andromedas. Yards of
ground in this wood were covered with the Pyrola
(Winter Green). Its small red berry was still on, and
spring flowers and bulbs of all kinds were growing up
through it. A more beautiful covering for the ground,
where the soil is leafy and the moisture sufficient, does
not exist.

A good rockery label, as it shows very little, is a
small stick with the bark left on, but for a flat piece cut
off at the top, which is painted white, to receive the
name.

RECEIPTS

Turbot a la Portugaise.— Cut into Julienne strips
equal quantities of carrots, onions, turnips, and celery.
Fry lightly in butter till a good colour. Add fresh
tomatoes, peeled, and with the seeds taken out. Cut
them in slices before adding to the other vegetables.
Moisten with a glass of white Sauterne wine and a
little German sauce (see 'Dainty Dishes') to bind the
vegetables, a little veal gravy, a little salt, a pinch of
sugar; and leave the whole to cook for twenty to
twenty-five minutes, till of a good consistency.

Meanwhile take the fillets of a moderate -sized turbot
without bones or skin. Butter freely a rather shallow
saute" -pan, place the fillets in it, season with salt and
white pepper, moisten with one or two glasses of

MARCH 271

Sauterne wine, and bring to the boil on the fire. Cover
with a round bit of buttered paper, and finish cooking
them inside the oven. Baste them constantly, so that
they should not get dry. They will take from twenty to
twenty -five minutes to cook.

Serve the fillets in a silver dish — whole or in slices.
Add to the vegetables the gravy of the fillets of turbot
which remains in the saute -pan. Cook these to a turn,
add a good bit of fresh butter and a little Hungarian
'paplika'; in default of which a little cayenne pepper
can be used. Pour the vegetables over the turbot, to
hide the fillets. Place for a few moments in a hot oven,
and serve.

When mushrooms are small or not very fresh, they
are best chopped fine, warmed up with a little butter,
pepper and salt, and poured on to some squares of
hot toast. The yolk of an egg is an improvement
for non- vegetarians. For broiling mushrooms in the
oven, they are much better if done in bacon -fat instead
of butter.

Button's winter salad is now getting rather old. If
it is cut up in small shreds, and a raw leek and beetroot
added (also shredded fine) , and the whole mixed together
with a little half mayonnaise sauce or plain oil and
vinegar, it makes a very good salad.

We get the seedling lettuces in boxes a little earlier
year by year, as it is such a pleasure to get back to a
really fresh salad. It always recalls to me the young
spring salads the monks used to bring to my mother at
Cimiez, and which she attributed to some mysterious
monkish secret. The fact is, the climate there enables
lettuces to be sown out of doors very early.

It is well to know that rhubarb can be made to take
the flavour of anything you cook with it ; but with forced
young rhubarb, when the flavour is delicate, it is a mis-

272 MORE POT-POURRI

take to put in anything except a little sugar. Cooks can
be reminded at this time of year, when dried fruits
are so useful as compotes — apricots, prunes, apples, etc.
— that it is a great improvement in the stewing of them
to add occasionally a tablespoonful of cold water, to pre-
vent their cooking too fast. Bleached almonds are a
pleasant addition as a change in these compotes.

I read with regret the other day in a leading
evening newspaper of the authoritative revival of the
notion that eating tomatoes is the cause of the increase
of cancer. This theory seems likely to deprive the poorer
public of one of the best and cleanest blood -purifiers
within reach of the inhabitants of our towns. It seems
to me on a par with Swift's idea that his life -long head-
aches were in a great measure due to a surfeit of fruit
consumed when very young at Moor Park, and which,
naturally enough, brought on the first attack, as a dish
of strawberries will upset a meat -eating and gouty
patient — this state of the blood being produced by
eating, not too much, but too little fruit. The popula-
tion of the whole south of Europe has eaten tomatoes
from time immemorial. Would it not be far more
sensible to look for the cause of cancer in the great
increase of meat -eating, especially in towns, the over -fed
and diseased cattle, tinned and other preserved animal
foods, and the much consumed modern stimulant,
beef -tea?

I do not vouch for the absolute correctness of the
following statements, but I find them among my notes,
and I think there is some truth in them :

Lettuce is calming and beneficial to anyone suffering
from insomnia.

Honey is wholesome, strengthening, cleansing, heal-
ing, and nourishing.

Lemons afford relief to feverish thirst in sickness,

MARCH 273

and, mixed with hot water, are a help in biliousness,
low fever, colds, coughs, rheumatism, etc.

In cases of diseases of the nerves and nervous dys-
pepsia, tomatoes are a powerful aperient for the liver,
and are invaluable in all conditions of the system in
which the use of calomel is indicated.

Onions are useful in cases of nervous prostration, and
will quickly relieve and tone up a worn-out system.
They are also useful in all cases of coughs, colds, and
influenza.

Apples are nutritious, medicinal, and vitalising. They
aid digestion, clear the voice, and correct the acidity of
the stomach.

APRIL

Newspapers on cremation — More about Suffolk— Maund on flowers
that close — Asparagus- growing on the seacoast — Peacock
feathers for firescreens — Dining-room tables — Petroleum tubs
in gardens — Neglect of natural history — Cactuses again — Old
mills — Mr. Burbidge on sweet -smelling leaves — Florist
Auriculas — Seed - sowing — Kitchen garden — Poultry .

April 1st. — This book is the last bit of work of the
kind I shall [ever do, and I am anxious to state, as I
think of them, any views I may happen to have on
various matters.

I am deeply interested in watching the gradual
development of public opinion on cremation. I casually
alluded to this before, in reference to Mr. Robinson's
well-known book on the subject. So far as I can judge
from the newspapers, cremation is making a little way
among the rich and well-known, who alone seem in this
country to have the power of influencing the majority.
But if what I read is true, a terrible fashion is growing
around this excellent, clean, practical way of being dealt
with after death, and that is that instead of one funeral
there are to be three — one the cremation, another the
funeral service in London, a third (and worst of all) the
burying of the ashes. The newspapers gave an account
of a cremated peer who, by his own wish or his family's,
had the box with the collected ashes deposited in an
ordinary -sized coffin, in order that the tenantry might
have the honour of carrying the coffin in the usual way
to the vault. This kind of thing, I think, tends to
make the process ridiculous. And as only those are

(274)

APRIL 275

cremated who wish it, detailed directions might be left
that the ashes should be spread under the sweet vault of
heaven, and a memorial erected, useful or otherwise, in
church or street, as seems good to the family. That
alone, in my opinion, gives dignity to the whole pro-
ceeding ; the burying of box or urn is meaningless and
almost puerile. How dogmatic it reads in print, to say
simply what one feels ! But I mention my view of the
question because, in talking with people, I so often find
they have done such and such a thing merely because
they had not thought of the other way. The old world,
it is true, collected the ashes. But we know that in
later days they were used by the Roman washerwomen,
so long as they could get them, as we use soda, for the
purifying alkalies they contained. I see no need for us
to provide alkaline matter for future generations.

April 2nd. — I have been lately to some of my Suffolk
friends, in whose gardens I always learn so much. In a
bowl of mixed flowers in my room I quickly detected a
flower I did not know, a pale lavender double -daisy-
shaped ball, many on a branch, and yet not crowded or
thick. This turned out to be double Cineraria, grown
from seed sent out by Veitch. I can see the horror of
many of my good -colour -loving, bad -colour -hating
friends, who dislike the ordinary finely -grown gardener's
Cinerarias as much as I do. These double ones have
the advantage of doing exceedingly well picked, and are
one of the few plants which I really think are prettier
double than single, though I afterwards saw that some
of the plants were very crude and hard in colour.

Dimorphotheca eclonis is a very pretty -growing,
long -flowering pot -plant from Africa. It is of the same
family as Calendula (Marigold), and very like Calendula
pluvialis, figured in Maund's 'Botanic Garden,' that
never -to -be -too -much -praised book. The whole family

276 MORE POT-POURRI

of Calendulas close on dull, damp days. Maund says of
these plants : ' The Latin pluvialis, which pertains to
rain, is used in reference to the influence which rain or
dew has on the opening and closing of the blossoms of
our present subject. All flowers, we believe, which
close in rainy or cloudy weather have the property of
closing at night. The same object, protection from
moisture, is attained in each instance. This peculiarity
is prettily alluded to in the following lines, which I
copy from Dr. Withering' s arrangement :

The flower enamoured of the sun,
At his departure hangs her head and weeps,
And shrouds her sweetness up, and keeps

Sad vigils, like a cloistered nun,
Till his reviving ray appears,
Waking her beauty as he dries her tears.

The seed of this Calendula pluvialis may be sown in
the open ground in April.

I have never seen Messrs. Backhouse's gardens at
York ; but so far as I can judge, from seeing various
rock gardens they have made and planted, no one is half
so good as they are for all Alpines. They have so im-
proved the actual plants that they are scarcely to be
recognised as the same which grow in their mountain
homes. Many will say : ' What a pity ! ' But that
applies to all rock -gardening. If one tries to grow
Alpines, one wants them to be strong and to live.
Saxifraga oppositifolia is, for instance, really like what
Mr. Backhouse describes in his catalogues and David
Wooster illustrated in his book on Alpine plants. Saxi-
fraga sancta blooms in profusion as early as this, and is
a bright, pale yellow. All these plants require either to
be divided or else to have some handfuls of light earth
thrown over them after flowering. Saxifraga bur-

APRIL 277

seriana is also very early, and has a pretty flower. But
all these plants cost money, as they make no effect
except in large clumps; and, to do well, I fear they
want stiff, moist soils.

Those who live near the coast may be interested to
hear of an experiment which I saw being tried for grow-
ing Asparagus in a wild state on the sandy shore of
Suffolk. The gardener wrote me the following descrip-
tion of what he had done :

'In the spring of 1896, some yearling Asparagus
plants were planted on the lower portions of some raised
banks close to the sea. There was no attempt at
preparing the ground ; it was not even properly cleared
of weeds, or sufficient care exercised to plant the plants
far enough apart to give them growing room. But the
result far exceeds what might have been expected from
such rough-and-ready treatment, for one can almost
say they have grown wild. As regards the soil of which
these banks are composed, the only remark one can
make is that it is of a very questionable character,
although of three classes : No. 1, pure, fine drift sand ;
No. 2, drift sand crag and river mud mixed ; No. 3,
river mud. The plants in No. 2 mixture have given the
best produce, No. 3, river mud, being very close; whilst
the produce of No. 1, from the fine drift sand, is very
poor. There has been no attempt to give cultural aids
in the way of manure up to the present. In summing
up the result of the above experiment, it is quite evident
that our home-grown Asparagus supplies might very
easily be largely increased, and it is to be hoped the
idea may be taken up as a means of profit by working
men who are holders of land by the sea.

' It will be necessary, if success in the production of
the first-class article is to be arrived at, to observe
clearly at the onset three things of the utmost impor-

278 MORE POT-POURRI

tance. First, thoroughly clean the land to be planted
with Asparagus of all such weeds as Docks, Spear- grass
or any other perennial weed, as if done at the first it is
done for good, leaving the land free to be taken posses-
sion of by the Asparagus roots, and doing away with
any after -necessity of forking about them. Second,
plant good, strong yearling plants not nearer together
than two feet, better still if the distance is increased to
three or four feet, marking the spot where each plant is
planted with a stout stake, so that their position can be
known. Third, the land must be kept free of weeds,
and a dressing of manure, or any form of liquid
manure, may be given occasionally during their season
of growth.'

I may add that, even in inland sandy places, I am
certain a very fair success is to be obtained in growing
Asparagus by planting them in odds and ends of places,
even amongst shrubs, or anywhere in suitable corners.
The difficulty is to mark the place clearly enough in
winter, so that when a new hand comes in the roots may
not be dug up. The Asparagus plants that annually
bear a quantity of berries are by no means so large as
those that are unfruitful, and great numbers of garden-
ers now discard them at planting time where they are
known to exist. This, no doubt, is a step in the right
direction. I believe this excessive seeding of some
plants is the result of check in growth in young stages,
such as severe root -in jury, overcrowding in the seed-
bed, and poverty of soil. It is well to add that in
all exposed places it is necessary to secure by staking
the summer's growth, as it is very important that
this should be preserved from being broken down,
and it should not be cut down till quite late in the
autumn.

April 4th.— Returned home to-day. It is incredible

APRIL 279

the difference a little warm rain makes. The whole
garden looks so changed from when I went away, four or
five days ago !

I have in the entrance drive a large Balsam -bearing
Poplar — or Tacamahac tree, as I believe it to be cor-
rectly called. Mr. Loudon, in his 'Arboretum,' describes
it exactly. Every garden of a certain size would be the
better for having one of these trees, because of the ex-
quisite sin ell of the long catkins produced in April. If
one passes near the tree in showery weather, the air
reminds one of a greenhouse filled with Cape Jessamine
or Gardenia. The scent does not last very long, but
while it does I know nothing sweeter.

April 5tli. — Years ago I had the great pleasure of
going to D. G. Rossetti's studio. , He was working at
the small replica of his beautiful big picture now at
Liverpool — Dante's dream — from the 'Vita Nuova.' In
the picture Love holds his hand and gives Beatrice —
dead — the kiss that Dante never gave her living. It is
a poem which can be interpreted in a hundred ways,
according to the mind and heart of those who look. To
most people I suppose it is the glorious interpretation of
a very common mental attitude — what we have not had
is to us what is most precious and most beautiful and
most lasting. When Rossetti ceased to be among us,
and with the memory of that afternoon at his studio
strong upon me, I went to his house in Cheyne Walk on
the 'private view' day before the sale. I tried to buy
one or two of his things, but they went at very high
prices, and I got nothing ; still I have always remem-
bered what struck me as a lovely and original firescreen.
I have had it copied several times, and it has given
pleasure to many; so I will describe it here, that it may
give pleasure to a few more. It was a little Chippen-
dale plain mahogany screen, consisting of three narrow

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leaves. The surface of each of these was entirely cov-
ered with the eyes of peacock feathers stuck one over
the other, like the scales of a fish, each eye having the
long feathers round it cut off. The other side of the
panel was gilt, and I have lately found that thin oak
takes the gilding best. I think in the original Rossetti
screen it was gilt paper or leather. On this, long pea-
cock feathers, split at the back to make them lie flat,
were arranged in groups of three or five or six, at
various heights, according to fancy. They look best if
the stalks nearly meet at the bottom. The panels are
glazed on both sides. A square firescreen can be ar-
ranged in the same way. The effect is most satisfac-
tory, and it has that great merit in furniture — unchange-
ableness. The colours, being natural, never fade ; and
the glass preserves the feathers from perishing.

The following is a receipt for varnishing plaster
casts, given me many years ago by Sir Edward Burne-
Jones :

Quarter of an ounce of gum elami, two ounces of
white wax, half a pint of turpentine ; add a small
squeeze from an oil-paint tube of raw umber when a
small quantity of the varnish has been poured into a
saucer ready for use. Apply with a brush, and spread
quickly and evenly. This has to be done three times,
with a day between each coating, and rubbed hard with
a silk handkerchief between each painting. It gives
casts and plaster figures the colour of old ivory, and
makes them useful and decorative in a way they can
never be without it. The varnish on the casts lasts for
ever, never becomes dirty, and the dust can be rubbed or
even washed off quite easily. The best place in London
for plaster casts is Brucciani's (40 Russell street, Covent
Garden) . I know few decorations more satisfactory — for
those who appreciate them and in certain rooms — than

APRIL 281

these casts, either from Greek friezes or (best of all) the
low -relief reproductions of Donatello's almost divine
work.

Dinner -tables in country houses are often a great
puzzle. I know nothing so dreary as two or three
people sitting down to a large, empty table at breakfast
or dinner, because it is not worth while to change it, as
a few more are coming to luncheon. When we first
came here, even our family party varied so much in
numbers that I thought it most desirable to find some-
thing that would suit my notions, and be easily and
quickly changed from little to big and vice versa. I
hunted the old furniture shops with no success, and at
last decided something must be made to carry out my
intentions. We got three oak tables made of exactly
the same size, the top of each being forty -five inches
square. It was impossible for these tables to have four
legs, as when put together, which was my plan for
enlarging, they would be much in the way. The top
was not very thick, so had to be firmly supported. This
was done by two pieces of wood placed underneath the
top and resting on four wooden columns (after the man-
ner of Chippendale's round tables) fitting into a piece of
wood fourteen inches square and eight inches from the
floor. From the four corners of this spread out four
feet, almost but not quite to the outside edge of the
table above, thus making it quite firm. This table is
equally suitable for two or four people. In order to
make it comfortable for six, we lay a false top upon it a
few inches longer at both ends. When guests are more
numerous, two of the tables are put together, and for a
still greater number the third can be added. They
remain perfectly firm and level if made of seasoned
wood, and need no fixing or machinery to join them.
The oak can be varnished or left plain, smoked or

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stained green, according to taste. Mr. Watson, of 11
Orchard street, London, makes them to order. For
breakfast or luncheon we use the small tables apart,
even when our party is complete. But at dinner this
gives so much more trouble in waiting that we put them
together.

April 8th. — This year gardening knowledge is given
to the public cheaper than ever. There is a new penny
handbook on gardening to be got at any railway station
(Ward, Lock & Co.). It is quite good, giving all the
elementary instruction necessary.

The uses of petroleum tubs in a garden are endless.
I get my oil now from London, and so do not return the
barrels. Mr. Barr told me the other day he was knock-
ing the bottoms out of some, sinking them, one below
the other, with a pipe in between, and puddling them
with stiff clay at the bottom ; then he was going to
plant them with specimens of the beautiful new French
Nymphaaas (Water Lilies), M. Marliac's hybrids being
the most beautiful perhaps of all. A full, excellent, and
detailed account of the cultivation of these Water Lilies
is to be found in Mr. Robinson's last edition of ' The
English Flower Garden.' As is natural at my age, I
have a most elderly affection for types and parent
plants, because, as a rule, they are less expensive to buy,
and much more willing to be managed when one has got
them. But I do not say this without from my heart
giving all honour to cultivators of hybrid plants.

Tub arrangements can be made of endless use even
in the smallest gardens and back yards, if sunny — never
forgetting the precious rain-water, which every slight
slope in the ground makes it easy to collect if the tubs
are sunk level with the ground. I mention things again
and again, knowing well in our full modern lives how
useful it is merely to remind. This year I have sunk a

APRIL 283

tub under every tap I have in the garden, as exposing
the water to the sun and air prevents its being so hard
and cold as when it comes straight out of the pipe.

We have just had, what we always feel to be doubly
precious in our sandy soil, a good shower of rain. Mr.
Stephen Phillips, in the 'Saturday Review' last year,
had a poem which describes this kind of shower beauti-
fully and originally :

After rain, after rain,

Oh, sparkling Earth!

All things are new again,

Bathed as at birth.

Now the pattering sound hath ceased,

Drenched and released,

Upward springs the glistening bough

In sunshine now;

And the raindrop from the leaf

Buns and slips;

Ancient forests have relief,

Young foliage drips.

All the earth doth seem

Like Dian issuing from the stream,

Her body flushing from the wave,

Glistening in her beauty grave;

Down from her, as she doth pass

Little rills run to the grass ;

Or like, perhaps, to Venus when she rose

And looked with dreamy stare across the sea,

As yet unconscious of the woes,

The woes, and all the wounds that were to be.

Or now again,

After the rain,

Earth like that early garden shines,

Vested in vines.

Oh, green, green

Eden is seen!

After weeping skies

Bising Paradise;

Umbrage twinkling new

'Gainst the happy blue.

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God there for His pleasure,

In divinest leisure,

Walking in the sun,

Which hath lately run;

While the birds sing clear and plain,

Behind the bright, withdrawing rain.

Soon I shall perceive

Naked, glimmering Eve,

Startled by the shower,

Venture from her bower,

Looking for Adam under perilous sky;

While he hard by

Emerges from the slowly dropping blooms

And warm, delicious glooms.

April 10th. — This is a time when I always find it a
little difficult to keep the conservatory next the drawing-
room gay. The large Crinum is going off, and the
Azaleas are rather a bad metallic colour, which kills
everything else. Primula farinosa is a pretty thing if
well grown ; Cineraria cruenta is in full bloom, but I
must get some fresh seed, as the flowers have all become
one shade, which they were not at first. A charming,
sweet little shrub which looks something like a white
Daphne is Pittosporum tobira ; it comes in usefully at
this time. We have had in succession since January
pots of Polygonatum (Solomon's Seals), and they all go
out into the reserve bed to be taken up another time, so
are not at all wasteful. I have never had Forsythia sus-
pensa so good in the garden as this year. The shrub is
one golden mass, and when picked in long branches and
peeled it is quite admirable in water. I suppose its
being so good is partly an accident of the weather,
partly that after flowering last year it was cut back hard,
and partly that we twisted black thread about it to pre-
vent the birds eating the buds in February, which they
invariably do here, both wilh this plant and with
Prunus Pissardii. Spiraea Thunbergii responds in the

APRIL 285

most delightful way to constant pruning. The more the
dear little thing is cut, the better it seems to do. That
is the real secret of all these early -flowering shrubs ;
they do not exhaust themselves then with leaf -making
and growth. Under those shrubs where there are no
Violets and no white Arabis, the common Lungwort
(Pulmonaria) makes an exceedingly pretty ground-cov-
ering; for instance, under a Lilac bush or any deciduous
shrub. This kind of spring gardening is only trouble,
not expense, as all these plants divide into any number
after flowering, and take away the bare look of a spring
garden on light soils. When the leaves are out, the
place they are in wants nothing and would grow nothing
else. In fact, in these kinds of gardens the more the
earth can be kept clothed and covered with light -rooting
dwarf plants the better, as it saves weeding — always
such a terrible business.

Nothing, I think, tempts me so much to neglect all
duties and to forget all ties as gardening in early spring
weather. Everything is of such great importance, and
the rush of work that one feels ought to be done without
a moment's delay makes it, to me at least, feel the most
necessary thing in life. A friend wrote to me once :
'The best thing in old age is to care for nothing but
Nature, our real old mother, who will never desert us,
and who opens her arms to us every spring and summer
again, warm and young as ever, till at last we lie dead
in her breast.'

And another wrote : ' Serenity, serenity, serenity and
light ! Surely this is the atmosphere of Olympus ; and
if we cannot attain to it in age, in vain has our youth
gone through the passionate toil and struggle of its up-
ward journey to the divine summits.'

These thoughts fit better the solitude of bursting
woods in the real country than the cultivating mania in

286 MORE POT-POURRI

a small garden, where we are all tempted to fight against
Erasmus' assertion : 'One piece of ground will not hold
all sorts of plants.'

A great deal of pleasure is to be got by striking cut-
tings of Oleanders in heat, and growing them on in a
stove or greenhouse till the small plant flowers. I saw
the other day a cutting of double pink Oleander struck
last summer, with the largest, finest blooms, both for
colour and form, I have ever seen. It had been brought
forward, of course, in considerable heat. Oleanders are
now to be had of all colours, from the deepest red to
palest pink and pure white. They strike easier in sum-
mer if the stalks of the cuttings are stuck in water for
a few days before they are planted.

I have lately been able to procure a book called ' The
Insects of Great Britain,' by W. Lewin, 1795 — an ambi-
tious and comprehensive title indeed, and only one vol-
ume of the series ever appeared. But Mr. Lewin began
with the most attractive and showy of the insects ; viz.,
butterflies. His plates are most beautiful and careful,
even for that excellent period of hand -coloured illustra-
tion. I suppose that everyone knows the easy way to
distinguish between butterflies and moths. In butter-
flies the antennae, or what children call 'horns,' are
always knobbed, and in moths they are the same thick-
ness to the end. When I was in Florence I saw an old
fireplace decorated with most lovely tiles. I am not
knowing enough to say if they were Dutch or Italian,
but they were very pretty. There were lines, brown and
yellow, round each tile, the inner lines cutting off the
corners ; then a dainty little wreath of Olive branches
and inside it a butterfly, the butterfly on every tile being
different. The ground-colour of the tile was a creamy
white. This book would render the remaking of such
tiles comparatively easy.

APRIL 287

Last summer (1898) a little book appeared called
'Where Wild Birds Sing,' by James E. Whiting, pub-
lished by Sydney C. Mayle, 70 High street, Hampstead.
The writer is a real nature -lover. The motto of the
book is from a speech by Gladstone, who said : ' I think
the neglect of natural history was the grossest defect of
our old system of training for the young ; and, further,
that little or nothing has been done by way of remedy
for that defect in the attempts made to alter or reform
that system.' It is as a slight help in that direction
that I name these charming modern natural history
books, full of observation and love of nature, told in the
most simple way. This pretty little 'Invitation,' at the
beginning of the book, seems to be written by a relative
of the author, as it is signed * S. Whiting' :

Come, leave the city's toil and din,

The weary strife,
The cankering cares and sordid aims,

That deaden life.

Come, leave behind this restless rush,

This anxious strain;
Dame Nature tenders healing oalm

For tired brain.

Come, by yon grassy, shady lane

Rest tired eyes
On yonder meadows vernal green,

On cloudless skies.

Come to the woods, where Oak and Beech

Their shadows fling.
Come, weary toiler, rest awhile

Where wild birds sing.

I cannot understand anybody living in the country
and not taking a special interest in birds — from the sky-
lark, the smallest bird that soars, to the water wag -tail,

288 MORE POT-POURRI

the smallest bird that walks. The constant fight always
goes on as to whether birds in a garden do good or harm.
Nothing convinces my gardener that we do not suffer
more than our neighbours from the non -killing of bull-
finches. Poor little things! the harm they do is terribly
more apparent than the good, which has to be taken on
faith ; and this I do.

As I stated before, I have lately been growing Water-
cresses in pots and pans, with some measure of success.
But I never feel my ignorance without looking about for
some book which recounts an experience greater than
my own. I have found a perfectly comprehensive little
manual called 'Home Culture of the Watercress,' by
Shirley Hibberd (E. W. Allen, 1878) . Anyone interested
in the subject should try and get this book. The reason
of my comparative failure is that I did not stand the
pans in receptacles that would hold water. Also Water-
cresses are much better grown from small cuttings than
from seed. Mr. Hibberd says that, if kept sufficiently
moist and grown in his way, in about twenty days or
less one ought to be able to pick a nice dish of Cresses.
There is no garden, however small or dry, if watering
can be abundant, that cannot grow Watercresses in sum-
mer quite successfully as he recommends. The winter
supply requires to be kept from frost.

From the point of view of a real Cactus lover, I am
but a weak-kneed disciple. I confess that a greenhouse
full of these plants in various stages of bumpiness and
without a single flower, as is often the case, leaves me
cold and rather depressed. But to grow a certain num-
ber is of very great interest to me. The power they
have of clinging to life is shared by few plants. This
accounts for the fact that some of the finest kinds may
be seen occasionally in cottage windows. The most
gratifying point about cottage -window gardening is that

APRIL 289

in it fashion is unknown. Plants are handed down from
father to son, with a total disregard as to whether these
are fashionable or not. For a lengthened period Cac-
tuses have been a neglected family. Just lately magnifi-
cent groups have been exhibited by London nurserymen,
so they are fast coming to the front again.

Since writing my last book, I have learnt by experi-
ence a good deal more about Cactus culture. In this
country they require a kind of double treatment, accord-
ing to whether you want them to grow or to flower. If
you want small pieces to grow quickly, you must keep
them most of the year in heat and well watered. If, on
the other hand — and this especially applies to the hardier
kinds — you want them to flower, you must starve them
well through the winter. But I am sure that allowing
them to shrivel from want of water is wrong. To
prevent this, once the year is turned, I find occasional
syringing better than much watering at the roots. Over-
watering in winter generally means death, as they then
rot at the crown. Sun they must have all through the
summer. They are apt to be affected by a fungus blight;
this must be cleaned off, of course. Like all the dis-
tinct plant families in nature, the more we know about
Cactuses the more interesting they are. I have a new
sunny window which I am looking forward to filling
with Cactuses this summer. I have there now, in a
small pot, a red Phyllocactus (see Mr. W. Watson's
'Cactus Culture'), which has upon it two or three flow-
ers in bloom and fifty -two buds. One of my correspond-
ents was exceedingly sceptical about the same bloom of
my night -flowering Cereus (see page 121 of my first
bock) having lasted in a cool, dark hall for two nights ;
but it certainly did. Last year I was away from home
all the precious summer months, so I do not know what
happened to the 'bright -blooming Cereus, grand and

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glorious.' My correspondent adds that some years ago
he got into a controversy with experts in ' The Gar-
dener's Chronicle' about these flowers, and one corre-
spondent said that his Cereus remained in bloom six
weeks. That must have been a very large plant with
many blooms. Some of the most beautiful Cereuses are
so large they only seem to flower well if planted in the
open ground under glass. I think more than ever that
it is worth while to grow Cactuses — for anyone who
spends the summer at home. I am obliged to add this,
as one says 'Do you take sugar or cream?' at teatime,
for hardly anyone now does stay at home. Cactuses
have a way of flowering when they choose. They will
not wait for you if you are away, and their blooms only
last a short time ; but when they do condescend to
flower, the beauty of them is exquisite — far more rare
and lovely than any Orchid that I know. I have lately
been able to procure a book for which I have waited a
long time, ' Bliihende Cacteen,' by Dr. Pfeiffer and
F. R. Otto. It was published in Cassel (Germany) in
1843, and is a monograph on Cactuses, in two volumes
bound in one. The prints are very well drawn, and the
flowers hand -coloured. The text, unfortunately perhaps,
is written only in German and French.

For all who wish to increase their Phloxes, Michael-
mas Daisies, and hardy Chrysanthemums, it is quite
possible in this month or early in May not only to divide
them, as I said before, but to take off the shoots and
stick them in the ground. This gives you the plants
much less tall than if allowed to grow on the original
root. Many of the herbaceous things will root in this
way in spring. Cuttings of the white Everlasting Pea
certainly do.

Cerasus pseudo-cerasus, as sold by Messrs. Veitch &
Co., is very like Cerasus Watereri in Mr. Robinson's

APRIL 291

book. The whole family, and especially this one from
Mr. Veitch, seems to me as well worth growing as any-
thing I know among spring -flowering shrubs.

April 20th. — We have walked this evening down to
the old mill by the river Mole. I have, not unnaturally,
a great affection for a watermill, as I passed all my
childhood so close to its thumping mysteries, and my
bedroom window as a girl was just above the rushing
mill -tail, where the brown trout lay under the Laurels.
My old mill is all modernised and altered now, while
here the miller says with pride : ' I have been here fifty-
two years, and I grind the flour with the old stones — no
modern china rollers for me ! ' We buy his flour — his
'seconds' and his 'whole-meal' — and his bran. The
latter is what we really went down to fetch, as one of
my nieces is fond of bran -water. This wildly stimu-
lating beverage — far too much a tonic for my age — is an
American drink. You pour cold water on two handfuls
of fresh bran, let it stand for four hours, and then pour
it off. It is supposed to contain some of the phosphates
in the husks of the wheat, and consequently has much
of the nourishing qualities of brown bread.

April 26th. — Last year at this time I was able to go
and hear at the Drill Hall, Westminster, Mr. Burbidge's
exceedingly interesting address on ' Fragrant Leaves and
Sweet -smelling Flowers.' This lecture has since been
published in the ' Journal ' of the Horticultural Society
for October, 1898.

Beyond wishing to remind others how much pleasure
and instruction one gets from being a Fellow of the
Royal Horticultural Society, I take a sentence from his
lecture which seems useful and desirable for all gar-
deners. He says : ' I want you to rate all fragrant
foliage quite as highly as you now profess to value
sweet-scented blossoms. I also want to point out some

292 MORE POT-POURRI

of the essential differences, and advantages even, of
foliage leaves as opposed to those floral leaves we call
flowers. I am also particularly anxious to try and show
that there is a sanitary basis, rather than a merely
sensuous reason, for the usage of sweet odours and
vegetable perfumes, whether the same be fresh": orldried,
living, dead, or distilled. Modern researches have amply
proved that ozone is developed when the sun shines on
most kinds of fragrant plants, such as flowers, Fir
and Pine trees, and sweet herbs generally.' It is not
much trouble to sow Lemon pips, and yet what is
more delicious and reviving than the crushed leaf of a
Lemon tree?

I have found my increased number of Rosemary
bushes a great joy. They live everywhere with the
slight protection before described — namely, stuffed in
all sorts of places under shrubs. But to grow and
flower to perfection, as they do in Italy, they want to
be under a wall in a warm corner, and fairly well
nourished. No doubt their tendency to be killed in
hard springs in the open must be the reason that so
many gardens, especially small ones, where they are
most precious, are content to do without them.

Many books and periodicals praise the old customs
of using aromatic herbs, but in old days the smells
they had to conceal must indeed have been innumer-
able. I suppose, unless by reading the accounts of
how Russian peasants live even now, we cannot have
any idea what England — and indeed all Europe — was,
as regards dirt, two centuries ago. Our sweet modern
homes are very different. All the same, how many
houses are disagreeable from the smell of cooking
which pervades them ! Burning dry Lavender, dried
Rosemary, dried Cedar- wood, or the essential oils of
any of these, entirely does away with this nuisance,

APRIL 293

from which we have most of us suffered. Burning
things of this kind is also most useful in cases of
colds, influenzas, etc. Putting a piece of stale bread
into the saucepan when Cabbages are being boiled pre-
vents their smelling at all. This is pretty well known,
but seldom practised ; and the fact is, what causes the
nasty smell to pervade a house is not so much boiling
the Cabbages, but throwing the water while still hot
down the sink. This should never be done till the
water has cooled.

Cultivating the art of smelling has certainly been
neglected of late, which for every reason is a mistake,
as the absence of a sense is a sign of defective health ;
and if children's smell were tested, it would be noticed
when deficient, and the reasons would be diagnosed. In
healthy children the power of smell is often very acute.
To the blind, sweet -smelling leaves are more valuable
than sweet -smelling flowers, which they cannot see ;
and the leaves last longer, pack easier, and would be
much appreciated in hospitals for eye diseases.

Another very interesting letter I received about my
last book I will quote : ' I am simply writing with the
object of calling your attention to a group of plants
which I have in my small way been cultivating for
years, and which give me great pleasure every summer.
I refer to the night -flower ing and night -seen ted plants.
To a business man like myself they are specially wel-
come, as my time is all occupied with business during
the day, and the evening only is left in which we can
enjoy our gardens. The most interesting in the group
is that exquisite little gem of an annual, Schizopetalum
WalJceri. It has no English name, unfortunately ; you
will find it in William Thompson's catalogue. This
little flower is pure ivory white, of a Maltese cross
form, and after dark throws out a most delicate per-

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fume, not unlike the Almond. I also sow a packet or
two of Mathiola bicornis, or Sweet-scented Stock. It
is powerfully fragrant after dusk, and is of a pleasant
character. Then I have a few plants of Nicotiana
affinis scattered about the garden. These you will
know better than myself. There is also the Hesperis
tristis, which I find somewhat difficult to grow here
[Manchester]. Also CEnothera odorata, another of the
type. So that here you have a small group of plants
which kindly reserve their fragrance, store it up dur-
ing the daytime, and then considerately during the
twilight and evening, when the breadwinner of the
family comes home after his day's toil, throw out their
precious odours and make the garden all the pleasanter
and more refreshing for the night stroll after supper.'

April 28th. — Some years ago I was anxious to grow
some florist Auriculas, but I must frankly own we were
never very successful. They took too much frame-room
and wanted too much care ; but for anyone who likes to
grow special flowers in a small space I cannot imagine
anything more interesting than Auricula -growing. The
following directions were written out for me by a most
successful Auricula-grower, and they may prove very
useful to some few people who are fond of these flowers :

' The fancy or florists' Auricula is divided into green
edges, gray edges, white edges, and selfs. These flowers
should be grown in pots. One of the most famous
growers (and a man of high class, although his station
is only that of a Sheffield workman) is Ben Simonite.
According to him, a compost of two parts fibrous loam,
one part old hotbed manure, one part old leaf -mould,
with sufficient charcoal the size of split peas to keep the
soil open, is suitable. This should be put together in
the autumn, and turned over frequently during the win-
ter. The right time for repotting is after the bloom is

APRIL 295

over ; at this moment (early in April) my earliest plants
are in bloom. When potted, the plants require occa-
sional watering, but freedom from drenching rains. If
by chance over -much watered, time should be allowed
for this excess to pass away, and the plants not watered
again until quite dry, although not flagging. Little else
is needed, save to remove decaying foliage and keep
down the aphis or greenfly. All the summer, and until
November, the plants may remain in the open air, save
when they are protected from heavy rains. Early in
November they go into a coldframe, but ventilated by
day whenever the weather is at all fine. Water should
be given seldom, but sufficiently when given at all.
Great dry ness will be endured without damage, but there
is a point which must not be overpassed. Towards the
end of January life revives, and water is more needful.
Prior to this, if it be possible, the pots should be so
placed as to receive what light there is, which accelerates
the resumption of growth. About the middle of Febru-
ary, if the growth is evidently progressing, the plant
should be top-dressed with compost, rather stronger than
that used in planting — so fully that side -shoots may be
able to root into the top-dressing. On these offsets de-
pend the reproduction of named kinds. From seed new
varieties may be raised, but the offspring are often very
unlike the parents. In March the flower -stems begin to
rise, and during April the plants flower. In this month
the annual exhibition at the Kensington Horticultural
takes place. It is important to protect the plants in
severe weather by means of matting, also against cut-
ting winds ; but they are hardy, and their great risk is
not cold, but rotting through excessive moisture, which,
affecting the foliage, attacks the neck of the plant if
decaying leaves be not picked off.'

Alpine Auriculas are easily grown from seed, and

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require much less care (see 'English Flower Garden').

I am often asked what my vegetable seed bill amounts
to. The fact is, I never know. Seeds are so cheap that
I get what I want. Where the waste comes in is in sow-
ing them in too large quantities at one time, instead of
in succession, not thinning out, etc. It is always worth
while to sow all useful vegetables several times over,
whether in spring or summer.

The ordinary amateur feels the extreme difficulty of
growing flower seeds either in boxes or even out of
doors, and says that in the end it is decidedly cheaper to
buy plants. This is, of course, true of all the strong-
growing herbaceous things. But every gardener soon
finds that if you want any quantity of one thing, or if
the plant is not particularly suited to the soil, it is in-
finitely better to grow the plants from seed than to buy
one or two specimens, which constantly die. I would
always advise beginners to try sowing seeds in little
squares in the seed-bed. It is only by this process that
they can learn what does well from seed and what does
not. Seed-beds in April should be in different aspects
— some cool and damp, and some dry and sunny, accord-
ing to the nature of the plant sown and the country it
comes from — and left, only "weeded, for one or two
years. I am quite sure no garden will ever look full and
varied all the year round without a great number of
plants being grown from seed. It is a later stage of
gardening, that is all, just as collecting and saving your
own seed is a later stage still.

I saw the other day in a Suffolk newspaper some ob-
servations on seed -sowing under glass. They seemed to
me so useful just at this time of year that I copied part
of the article : ' Sowing seeds may to the superficial
observer seem a simple affair ; yet it is one of the most
important operations in gardening. There is a great

APRIL 297

difference even amongst gardeners in raising plants from
seed. One may succeed with all kinds of seeds, provid-
ing the seed is good ; whereas another gardener will
have the greatest difficulty even in getting ordinary
seeds to germinate. Of course, the kind of seeds I
mean are choice greenhouse, stove, or Alpine. My ex-
perience teaches me that a great many failures are the
result of sowing the seed too early in the year. The
particular seeds I mean are those sown early in spring,
either of plants for conservatory decoration or to bloom
in flower beds and borders during the coming summer.
Take, for example, those charming greenhouse flowers
the Cape Primrose (Streptocarpus) . Sow this seed in
January, and the greatest difficulty is experienced in
getting it to germinate ; but if sown in April, it will
germinate as easily as Lobelia. But perhaps giving
choice seeds daily — nay, I might almost say hourly —
attention is the most important point of all. The seed
may be sown at the proper time and be placed in a suit-
able place ; the soil may be everything to be desired ;
in fact, everything used — pots, pans, boxes, and drainage
— may be all right, yet if they do not receive proper
attention for days, weeks, and months before the seed
grows, and after, as the case may be, failure will surely
follow such neglect. This attention means keeping the
compost in that happy condition which is neither wet
nor yet too dry.'

Sometimes it is a help to put a little wet Sphagnum
moss on the top of the pot under the piece of glass, or
the pot may be covered with paper. The great thing to
aim at with all seeds, whether large or small, is to try
to keep the soil sufficiently moist, without having to
water them until they begin to grow. This is difficult,
well-nigh impossible, with those seeds which are a long
time in the soil before they germinate. Still, this is

298 MORE POT-POURRI

what should be aimed at. Once they are up, it is neces-
sary to water very gently. A good way is to put a
small piece of sponge in the hole at the bottom of a
flower -pot, and then fill the pot with water of the same
temperature as the greenhouse, and move it about so
that the water dribbles gently through. With large
seeds it is always a good plan to soak them twenty- four
hours in tepid water before sowing them. An excellent
way of handling very small seedlings is to take a little
bit of bamboo, bend it in two like a pair of tweezers,
and lay the seedlings on a piece of paper ; it is then
quite easy to handle the smallest seedlings without in-
jury.

The three or four weeks of severe frosty weather in
March has made us very short of vegetables. I never
buy when I have not guests, as feeling the pinch makes
one alive to one's deficiencies, and causes one to manage
better another year. So I thought I would try and see
how I liked the root we grow for the cows. We have
plenty left, as the winter has been so mild. It is Sut-
ton's Mangold -Wurzel, a yellow kind. We boiled it till
tender, whole like a beetroot, and when hot cut it into
slices, and ate it with cold butter. It was excellent. In
texture it was like a beetroot ; in taste, half like a sweet
Potato, half like a Chestnut. When Mangolds are
young they mash like Turnips.

Early this month Hops begin to show through the
ground. When the shoots are about six or eight inches
high, before the leaves develop, they can be picked,
tied together in a bundle, and cooked exactly like green
Asparagus. They have not much taste, but are pleas-
ant in substance, and are supposed on the Continent
to be exceedingly wholesome. A vegetable called
'Good King Henry' is worth growing to eat in the
way, and later the leaves cook like Spinach.

APRIL 299

It is also worth knowing that at this time of year,
when vegetables are scarce in the country, the fresh
green leaves of Rhubarb — generally thrown away —
make an excellent vegetable dressed like Spinach,
either with or without a little butter.

One of the great difficulties in a light soil is a con-
tinuous supply of Spinach, and gardeners never will
sow a sufficient succession in dry weather, when it
must be watered. It has a great tendency to run to
seed. In Sutton's book, 'The Culture of Vegetables
and Flowers,' he faces the difficulty and gives instruc-
tion for its remedy very efficiently. No other Spinach
approaches in excellence the real one, Spinacia oleracea ;
but for an extension of the supply two others should
be grown in every fair -sized kitchen garden. The
New Zealand Spinach (Tetragonia expansa) nourishes
in the hottest weather, and is best started in a box
under glass. The perpetual Spinach or Spinach Beet
(Beta Cicla) is a most valuable plant for its continuous
supply of leaves. Sutton says : 'When the leaves are
ready for gathering they must be removed, whether
wanted or not, to promote continuous growth.' This
is the case with a good many vegetables — Garden
Cress, Watercress, Chicory, etc. I shall give special
attention this year to sowing Spinach in all sorts of
places. Aspect and shade make so much difference in
the rapidity with which things grow !

Purslane is a vegetable not often sown in English
gardens, but it makes a good summer salad, and is
useful in soup or dressed as Spinach.

Last year I tried growing several kinds of Pota-
toes— five or six varieties recommended by Sutton —
but I do not think any turned out better than, if as
well as, Sutton's ' Magnum Bonum,' which we have
grown for years. ' Ring -leader' is the one we grow

300 MORE POT-POURRI

for the first early Potatoes ; and a red waxy Potato,
whose name I do not know, is most useful for cooking
in some ways. All must find out for themselves what
Potatoes suit their soils best, as it is a subject deserv-
ing attention and care.

The small, round button Onions so much used abroad
are often omitted in English gardens, though they are
merely the result of not thinning out the crop at all.
Choose a piece of poor, dry ground ; make this fine on
the surface ; sow in the month of April, thickly but
evenly ; cover lightly ; roll or tread, to give a firm
seed-bed. If sown shallow, the bulbs will be round.
Besides looking much prettier when braised, this small
kind keeps much better through the winter than when
made to grow large by thinning.

We grow two kinds of Sorrel now — one with a small,
round leaf, and the other the large-leaved ordinary
garden kind. It is quite easy, for those who like the
vegetable, to lift plants in the spring and grow them
on in a frame or greenhouse. It is a thing there is
always difficulty about buying, and it is not ' much
liked by English people. It wants to be freshly
gathered and well dressed.

There are endless numbers of books on poultry
within the reach of everybody ; and lately, in Ward,
Lock & Co.'s collection of penny handbooks, one has
been issued on poultry which is quite useful. But, like
all modern books, it is a little above the ordinary keeper
of cocks and hens for domestic purposes, making the
matter appear unnecessarily difficult. Having a good
big field for them to run in here, and the soil being
dry and light, I have not had disease amongst my
poultry. Among the list of horrible diseases given in
this penny book, we come to the following sentence :
4 Egg -eating. — This is rather a vice than a disease, and

APRIL 301

very troublesome to cure.' The author then gives a
cruel account of punishment to be used, in the hope
of disgusting the offender. This is an excellent instance
of the trend of modern thought. Egg -eating is, I am
sure, solely the result of giving the poor hens an insuf-
ficient quantity of the food required by nature to make
their shells hard. Disease among animals is much the
same as among people, and is produced often by large
quantities of food, but of an improper kind. Diseased
poultry means over -crowding, over-feeding — in fact,
the fault lies in the way they are managed. Hereditary
vice may, we hope, in hens at any rate, be left out of
the question. Another thing the author suggests is
that when a fowl is killed the entrails should be given
to the pigs. This is absolutely wrong, in my opinion,
as pigs are essentially vegetarians, and unclean feeding
is apt to make them diseased, which is very serious for
the eaters of pork.

One is always being asked, Does keeping poultry
pay ? I never keep strict accounts of what things cost
me. Nothing one does at home ever pays, unless one
looks into it entirely oneself. I only bring the rules
of ordinary common -sense and proportion to bear on
the matter.

For early egg -laying it is, I think, desirable to have
some of the southern breeds, such as Leghorns, Span-
ish, etc.

I know very little about my own poultry, as I cannot
make pets of things that have to be killed, and they are
entirely managed by my gardener and his wife. The
following is their account of what they do, and they
certainly have been very successful : ' We set the hens
as early in January as we can on about nine eggs, as
the weather is cold ; on thirteen eggs later, being care-
ful that the eggs should not have been frosted. We

302 MORE POT-POURRI

make the nests of hay in the henhouse, which is a warm
one. The early-hatched chicks are best for autumn kill-
ing, as they begin to lay about July for a short time,
and then stop laying till the next spring. The sitting
hens are fed once a day on barley, about a handful to
each hen ; the little chickens on grits the first day, and
then on oatmeal about every three hours. When they
are about a fortnight old they have a little barley in the
middle of the day. The mother hen is kept cooped up,
away from the other fowls, till the chicks are about six
weeks old, when they all run in the field. March- and
April -hatched birds we keep for stock, as they make
the best fowls and layers about October. We shut up
the pullets in a run for laying. We keep no hens older
than two years, and have fresh cockerels every year.
We feed the stock-fowls twice a day — on soft food in
the morning, and barley in the afternoon. The fowl-
houses are white -washed every spring, and kept cleaned
out twice a week, and the floors dusted with slack lime.
The fowls have a good field to run in, so they get
plenty of grass. The shut -up pullets require plenty of
grit and greenstuff, and they are fond of a Mangold to
pick at. Fowls are very fond of bones or scraps, or
anything that amuses them. It is very bad for fowls
to be dull. When we see a fowl not eating or not
looking well, we keep it apart for a day or two, give it
a dose of castor oil, and, if not soon better, we kill and
bury it.' I am sure this is a better plan than trying to
doctor sick birds. I know no more miserable sight than
unhealthy poultry. We rear a few ducks every year,
but kill them in the summer, as they are great con-
sumers of food.

In October I always buy, as I have said before, three
or four young turkeys, and have them fed here for
Christmas -time. It saves three or four shillings on each

APRIL 303

bird. Any fowls that are going to be killed ought to be
shut up for twelve hours without food. Turkeys and
geese require rather longer. Home-grown poultry is
much better not plucked or cleaned out till just before
cooking. Very young chickens are best eaten quite
freshly killed.

For Preserving Eggs. — Put some fresh eggs in a
large basin or jar, and pour lime-water over them. Two
days after, take out the eggs and look through them
carefully. Put away those which are at all cracked.
Those which are quite in good condition put into a
second jarful of lime-water, and stand this jar in the
cellar. See that the eggs are always covered by the
lime-water. They will keep for quite six months or
more. The first jarful of lime-water can be used to try
another lot of eggs.

This is another and even simpler way of preserving
eggs, which we find answers perfectly well here : Fill
a small shallow box deep enough to cover the eggs —
cardboard does quite well — with chaff. Put the fresh
eggs, just laid, into this with the points downwards.
Tie on the lid ; and when you have more than one box,
they can be tied together as they fill. The whole reason
of this plan is that the box should be reversed once
every twenty -four hours. If this is really done, the
eggs keep perfectly fresh for weeks — so fresh that they
are not to be distinguished from new-laid eggs, except
that they poach beautifully; which, as everyone knows,
a new-laid egg does not, any more than a stale one. If
the boxes are tied together, it is no trouble turning them
over beyond remembering it. The natural history of
this is that when the egg is laid the germ is alive, and if
the egg lays on its side the germ is not only alive, but
grows for many days. When the germ in the egg has
consumed its nourishment, it dies from cold, and in-

304 MORE POT-POURRI

stantly the egg goes bad. By putting the eggs end
downwards, and turning them daily, the germ dies at
once and never grows, and the egg remains good. Many
will not believe this. I can only say, 'Try it.' If you
either turn the box yourself, or have anyone you can
depend upon to do it for you, you will not find that it
fails.

If you rub perfectly fresh -laid eggs with butter, they
keep for a long time. If they have been laid twelve
hours before the butter is applied it is no good. Mrs.
Roundell says this receipt is of no use : perhaps because
she has not tried it with fresh enough eggs.

The word 'egg' reminds me of such an extremely
funny anecdote in Mr. Max Miiller's 'Auld Lang Syne'

that I must crib it. A certain Duke of M , being

very fond of natural history, was much interested in
some emus which he possessed. Having occasion to go
to town, his agent wired to him : ' The emu has laid an
egg. In your Grace's absence we have taken the largest
goose we could find to hatch it.'

I am told that the receipts both in my former book
and those in ' Dainty Dishes ' were considered extrava-
gant. I have now found a cheap little book, called
'Economical Cookery,' by Kate Addison, which meets
the want and is true to its name. At the end are two
or three most useful hints. If you want your onions to
fry a good colour, do not peel them. Another hint is
that if you boil corks for five minutes before using them,
they fit in the bottles much tighter, and so preserve
what is inside much better.

There is a French confectioner named De Bry (45
Southampton Row, and New Oxford street, London),
whom I have only lately got to know, and who has the
excellent device : 'Vendre bon pour vendre beaucoup.'
He sells jams which will be highly appreciated by that

APRIL 305

increasing class — jam -eaters. I recommend this motto
to all those who bottle fruit and make jams, especially
in our colonies. I have been lately given a large sam-
ple of .West Indian jams, but they are not up to the
mark. I should imagine there was a great opening for
all kinds of preserved fruits, syrups, jams, etc., from
abroad, where so many excellent fruits grow almost
wild. But they never can be a commercial success if
not done carefully. They must look pleasant to the eye,
be /juicy, and not too sweet. The French alone seem to
have the art of knowing how to bottle and preserve
fruit. I can buy in London bottled French raspberries,
not preserved in sugar at all, and as fresh and good as
if newly gathered from a garden ; indeed, better than
from my garden, where in dry seasons raspberries
always fail.

MAT

The ' French Sugar Pea'— The ' Westminster Gazette' on Tulips—
The legend of the Crown Imperial— Article on ' Sacred Trees
and Flowers' — Peeling of Poppies — Cooking receipts — Books
on Florence — Mr. Gladstone on traveling — Journey to Italy —
Arrival at Arcetri.

May 1st. — Gorse thoroughly peeled and wedged (see
first volume) lasts for weeks in water, and the warmth
of the room makes the flower come out so well it is
almost a different -looking plant.

In these light soils all the fruit trees over -flower
themselves so much, like pot -bound plants, that no one
need scruple to pick branches of blossom to put in water
in the house. The trees can never carry even the fruit
that sets.

The evergreens are beginning their spring shoots. I
think it must have been at about this time of year, when
the young leaves on the Holly have no spines, that
Southey wrote :

All vain asperities, day by day, would wear away,
Till the smooth temper of my age should be
Like the high leaves upon the Holly Tree.

A book published in 1857, called 'Curiosities of
Natural History,' by Francis T. Buckland, is very in-
terestingly written, and will be found full of information
on all sorts of subjects — from the anatomy of the water-
rat to Virgil's description of the death of Laocoon.

At this time of year, when the frame double Violets
are over, which do so well for finger-bowl bouquets in
(306)

MAY 307

spring, I find a plant or two of Nicotiana affinis, sown in
the autumn and grown in the greenhouse, very useful.
One flower cut off, with a branch of Prince of Orange
Geranium or a piece of Sweet Verbena — of which there
ought to be plenty now, if they have been properly
grown on — make charming little bouquets for this pur-
pose.

The gardener of a friend of mine sowed some self-
saved seed of Nemesia strumosa in September in a pan,
pricking them off twice — the second time a single plant
in a small pot. The result was some charming well-
grown plants, which flowered beautifully in April, and
the flowers were larger and finer than the summer ones
out of doors.

The French 'Mange -tout' Peas (Sutton catalogues
them as ' French Sugar Peas' ) are not yet sown gener-
ally enough in England. English cooks do not under-
stand (and how should they without explanation?) that
they are not shelled, but the pod and the pea are boiled
together, and a little butter added before serving.

In the 'Westminster Gazette' of last spring there was
an interesting article on the history of Tulips, called
forth by the Tulip show at the Eoyal Botanic Gardens
and the general revival of interest in the flower, which
has as romantic a history as any plant all the world over.
The article being too long to quote here entirely, I give
a few extracts : ' In the seraglio of the Shadow of God,
when the world was a few centuries younger, there was
one festival in early spring which for dazzling splendour
outshone the rest of the Eastern fairylike night scenes.
Unnumbered artificial suns, moons, and stars lit up the
Sultan's beautiful gardens, and in the mystic light
which turned night into day tens of thousands of Tulips
stood proudly up on their tall, slim stalks, the goblet of
each blossom perfect in form and in colour. Among

3o8 MORE POT-POURRI

this dazzling dream the Sultan and his harem, and
whoever else was great and mighty at the Court of Con-
stantinople, worshipped at the shrine of the Tulip, and
the whole of the East echoed the praise of the thouliban,
or turban flower, the corruption of which term has
become our name for the flower.

' The West at that period knew nothing of the Tulip,
though it had been great in the East for more years
than men remembered. India, Persia, and the Levant
had, in the course of ages, woven around it countless
legends of love and life and death ; great poets sang its
praises ; the heathen laid it at the feet of his gods, and
the early Christian of the East pointed to it as the
"Lily of the field" which afforded to Christ the subject
of a divine sermon to which the world has clung, and
still is clinging, as to a never -failing help when the
burden of life grows heavy.

'In the sixteenth century an ambassador of the
Emperor of Germany to the Sublime Porte, going from
Adrianople to Constantinople shortly after midwinter,
came upon a wondrous sight. On the roadside, among
the weeds and grasses, there rose in glorious beauty
clump after clump, bed after bed, of tall, goblet -shaped
flowers. As the sun shone upon them they blazed with
the colour of fire and sunlight, and the smooth, broad
petals formed a deep cup classically simple and perfect,
closing over a heart of gold.

1 Before long a few Tulip bulbs reached Germany,
and thence in 1577 came to England.'

We all know how Tulips were then taken up by
Dutchmen. The article says that for the three years
from 1634 to 1637 Holland was but a large asylumful of
tulipomaniacs. I have just been told how that in one
vineyard in Alsace, and in one alone, the pretty wild
tulip Tulipa reflexa flourishes abundantly. I think more

MAY 309

might be done by planting in England the type Tulips,
and leaving them to their fate, especially on chalky soils,
which they seem to like.

The Crown Imperials are nearly over. They have
not been as good as usual this year ; the hard frosts in
March blackened their poor crowns. A kind corre-
spondent was shocked at my non- botanical language in
speaking of the beads of liquid in the hanging flowers
as water, not honey. I merely meant that they looked
like pure water. He writes : ' I think on examination
you will find them honey. As you do not mention it,
you may not know of the legend in connection with this
flower, which is as follows. Please forgive me if a
twice-told tale : When our Lord in His agony was walk-
ing in the Garden of Gethsemane, all the flowers save
this one alone bowed their heads in sympathetic sorrow.
It held its head aloft in supreme disdain ; whereupon
our Lord gently rebuked it. Smitten with shame at last,
it hung its head, and since then has never been able to
raise it, and those who care to turn its face upwards
always find tears in its eyes.' He closed his letter with
the following practical hint : ' For protective purposes —
shelters — you may find the bamboo baskets in which
moist sugar is sent from South America, about three feet
high and nearly six feet round, when split open on one
side and flattened out, make good, light shelters.7

I am very fond of reading old 'Edinburghs' and
'Quarterlies,' and one is apt to find in them a helpful
contribution to anything that one may have been think-
ing about. This happened to me the other day when,
taking up the 'Quarterly Review' for July, 1863, I came
upon a most fascinating article, full of folk-lore and
tradition, called 'Sacred Trees and Flowers.' I should
delight in quoting several of the stories, but room fails
me. Working through all the older traditions of Europe,

310 MORE POT-POURRI

the writer gives full credit, as is due, to the monks, and
says : ' To the Benedictines and Cistercians — the first
great agriculturists of Europe and the first great gar-
deners, the true predecessors of the Hendersons and
Veitches of our own day— we are indebted for many of
the well -loved flowers that will always keep their places,
in spite of their gayer, but less permanent, modern
rivals. The Wallflower, that "scents the dewy air"
about the ruined arches of its convent ; the scarlet
Anemone, that flowers about Easter -tide, and is called
in Palestine the blood -drops of Christ ; the blossoming
Almond tree, one of the symbols of the Virgin, and the
Marigold that received her name, are but a few of the
old friends, brought long ago from Syria by some pil-
grim monk, and spread from his garden over the whole
of Europe. ... In the cloistered garden, too, the
monk was wont to meditate on the marvels of the plants
that surrounded him, and to find all manner of mys-
terious emblems in their marks and tracings. Many
displayed the true figure of the Cross. It might be
seen in the centre of the red poppy; and there was a
"Zucca" (fig) at Rome, in the garden of the Cistercian
Convent of Santa Potentiana, the fruit of which, when
cut through, showed a green cross inlaid on the white
pulp, and having at its angles five seeds, representing
the five wounds. . . . The Banana, in the Canaries,
is never cut with a knife, because it also exhibits a rep-
resentation of the Crucifixion, just as the Fern root
shows an Oak tree.' But the fame of the greatest of all
such marvels arrived at Rome in the year 1609, when
Bosio describes as maraviglioso fiore the Passion Flower
of the New World. The first to describe the Passion
Flower in England was our own Master Parkinson, who
said that it should be assigned^ to that ' bright Occidental
star, Queen Elizabeth, and be named, in memory of her,

MAY 311

the Virgin Climber.' The Passion Flower, however, has
retained its original name and significance. It is the
one great contribution of the western hemisphere to
the symbolical flowers of Christendom ; and its starlike
blossoms have taken a worthy place beside the mystical
Roses and Trefoils of ecclesiastical decoration.

When I replanted the Ornitkogalum pyramidale in
September last year, I planted between them some pieces
of Galega officinalis, so easily divided in the autumn.
The fresh, bright green makes a groundwork for the
long spikes of the bulbs, and later it gives a succession
of flowers of its own pretty white or pale lilac. In dry
seasons it is most useful for picking. In one place I
find it is growing quite successfully. In a more shaded
corner under a wall — no sun reaching it in winter —
every plant of the Galega has died. I merely mention
this as one more instance of how the hardiest plants do
well or not within a few yards of each other. I saw, in
a friend's garden to-day, Alstroemerias growing like
weeds all over the place. I remarked on this. 'Yes,'
she said, 'it's quite true.' For five years I had never
been able to get one seed to grow, and the plants I
bought invariably died. Now I have so many that I
must dig them out with a spade.'

I do not think I mentioned before that all kinds of
Poppies travel beautifully if they are gathered in bud ;
and if, on arrival, the hard husk is peeled off from the
buds, they revive and flower and last longer. Forcing open
the buds exhausts the flowers, and then they open, but
to fade and die. The Shirley and Iceland Poppies are
prepared in this way for the London market. Some of
the Campanula tribe do best dry and starved ; they
flower well instead of going to leaf. This is especially
the case with the little C. ccespitosa and with C. grandis,
which is so useful for covering the ground under shrubs

312 MORE POT-POURRI

and in bare, dry places. C. pyramidalis, though it likes
half shade, enjoys a rich, rather moist place. C. per-
sicifolia is never quite so beautiful here as I have seen
it on stiff soils.

It is well in spring and early summer to make con-
stant cuttings of the white Swainsonia. It does well
out of doors and in, and is a very refined, pretty little
plant.

RECEIPTS

To Cook Spaghetti (small Italian macaroni).— Put
some bacon -fat, or any pieces of fat, in a saucepan
with onions, carrots, herbs, etc., all chopped up, and a
little sugar. Fry them slightly. Pour off the fat. Cut
up some tomatoes, add a little stock, and simmer it all
together till the tomatoes are cooked. Pass the whole
through a sieve, so that the sauce may be quite smooth.
Boil the spaghetti separately till quite tender, then drain
off the water, and mix with the tomato sauce. If cheese
is liked, mix in some grated Parmesan the last thing
before serving ; also a little fresh butter, which can be
added without the cheese, if preferred.

Italian Way of Dressing a Cabbage with a Hard
Heart. — Plunge the cabbage into boiling water. Take
out the heart, cut it into ribbons. Mix with it bacon,
chopped meat or game, onion, garlic, parsley, [herbs,
and, above all, some Gruyere and Parmesan cheese — in
fact, almost anything. Bind this mixture with egg.
Replace it in the cabbage, and tie it up well to prevent
the stuffing from escaping. Boil fast till done. Serve
with brown or white sauce, or butter only.

Another Risotto a la Milanaise.— Italian rice is
the best of all, though rather difficult to get. It is dif-
ferent from either Carolina or Pata. Failing it, boil
half a pound of best Carolina rice. When it is about

MAY 313

half cooked, drain it off and replace it in the stew-
pan. Add a good quarter of a pound of butter, stand
it on the side of the stove, allow it to fry gently till the
rice is quite done, stirring very frequently to prevent
burning, which it will do unless constant attention is
given. Then mix about half a pint of good demie glaze
de volatile, or, if that should not be convenient, a little
ordinary half -glaze. Add about a quarter of a pound
of grated Parmesan, some tongue cut to size of a shil-
ling, and about four or five truffles cut in slices, also bits
of chicken the size of a shilling. Season to taste, and
serve very hot in a silver souffle -dish, with a very little
Parmesan grated over the top. It is an improvement,
as a change with risotto, to press it into a round basin
and turn it out before serving.

A very good way of cooking young potatoes is to put
them into a black frying-pan, whole, in hot butter.
Cover them up, and let them cook for an hour. This
does very well for small old potatoes also.

A very creamy puree of potatoes (see 'Dainty Dishes') ,
put into scallop-shells and browned in the oven, handed
round with roast mutton, is rather a pretty change.

Fresh summer spinach, plain boiled and chopped (not
too fine), and rolled in the middle of a large pancake, is
excellent.

A good puree of sorrel (see 'Dainty Dishes'), with
small asparagus cut up into little pieces, is an excellent
May or June dish.

Asparagus Salad.— Thin boiled asparagus, cut up
into short lengths (pointes d'asperges) and mixed with
oil and lemon-juice, makes a nice salad. It is much
improved by the addition of an apple ('New Zealand7)
peeled and cut up into thin Julienne shreds.

When apples get scarce and tasteless in the spring, a
very good 'charlotte ' can be made in exactly the same

3H MORE POT-POURRI

way as 'apple charlotte '(see Dainty Dishes') by making
a smooth purfe from stewed sun-dried apricots, to be
had of all London grocers and stores.

A good cookery book is called 'A Younger Son's
Cookery Book, by a Younger Son's daughter' (Richard
Bentley & Son) .

May 22nd. — When I made up my mind last year to
go to Florence, I thought I would try and collect a few
appropriate books to enlighten my ignorance and refresh
my memory. I asked my friends what I should take,
merely reminding them that Mr. Hare's volumes on Italy
and George Eliot's ' Romola ' had naturally occurred to
myself. I got very little help before I went ; but by
degrees, during the month I was in Florence and since
my return, I have collected and read several books which
I should have been glad to have had last year, and
which may help those who go straight from a busy home
life and take a short trip to Florence. Of course, the
literature on Florence is so enormous, and people's taste
in books differs so greatly, that to write a mere list of
names would enlighten no one. I shall only mention
those books which I either possess or have had lent to
me to read ; and if I describe them a little in detail, I
think it may help the inexperienced to make a selection
of those which they themselves would enjoy. At Florence
there is a most excellent lending library ; in fact, prob-
ably more than one.

As an example of 'art' teaching at the end of the last
century, there is now a cheap edition of Sir Joshua
Reynolds' 'Discourses,' which are full of wisdom and
general instruction. He shares with the greatest —
Michael Angelo especially — the misfortune that those
who came after him degenerated, which seemed at one
time to justify the condemnation of his teaching. Here
is a sentence from one of his ' Discourses ' which comes

MAY 315

home to me as a reason why, instead of giving my own
superficial opinions, I try to help others by recommend-
ing books which I think will greatly add to their enjoy-
ment of a visit to Florence :

'The great business of study is to form a mind
adapted and adequate to all times and all occasions ; to
which all nature is then laid open, and which may be
said to possess the key of her inexhaustible riches.

'A detail of instruction might be extended with a
great deal of pleasure and ostentatious amplification ;
but it would at best be useless. Our studies will be for
ever in a very great degree under the direction of chance.
Like travellers, we must take what we can get and when
we can get it, whether it is or is not administered in the
most commodious manner, in the most proper place, or
at the exact minute when we would wish to have it.

' The habit of contemplating and brooding over the
ideas of great geniuses, till you find yourself warmed by
the contact, is the true method of forming an artist -like
mind. It is impossible to think or invent in a mean
manner ; a state of mind is acquired that receives those
ideas only which relish of grandeur and simplicity.

' I do not desire that you should get other people to
do your business, or to think for you. I only wish you
to consult with, to call in as councillors, men the most
distinguished for their knowledge and experience, the
result of which counsel must ultimately depend upon
yourself. Such conduct in the commerce of life has
never been considered as disgraceful, or in any respect
imply intellectual imbecility ; it is a sign rather of that
true wisdom which feels individual imperfection, and is
conscious to itself how much collective observation is
necessary to fill the immense extent and to comprehend
the infinite variety of nature. I recommend neither self-
dependence nor plagiarism . I advise you only to take

316 MORE POT-POURRI

that assistance which every human being wants, and
which it appears, from the examples that have been
given, the greatest painters have not disdained to
accept.

' Let me add, the diligence required in the search, and
the exertion subsequent in accommodating those ideas
to your own purpose, is a business which idleness will
not, and ignorance cannot, perform. Men of superior
talents alone are capable of thus using and adapting
other men's minds to their own purposes, or are able to
make out and finish what was only in the original a hint
or imperfect conception. A readiness in taking such
hints, which escape the dull and ignorant, makes in my
opinion no inconsiderable part of that faculty of the
mind which is called genius.'

Before I begin my list of books, I think I will say
that there are few more useful things for young people
to take with them to Italy than a biographical dic-
tionary of the painters. I have two ; but they are old
ones. I have had them all my life. Doubtless there are
better and more modern ones now, which I have not
taken the trouble to look up. One is Pilkington's
' Dictionary of Painters ' by Allan Cunningham, and the
other a 'Dictionary of Italian Painters' by Maria
Farquhar, edited by R. M. Wornham. This is a dear
little book published in 1855, and light and portable,
but probably long out of print. In studying art,
nothing is more necessary than to know — not only the
chronology of the pictures themselves, but also to a
certain degree the evolution of the minds of the men
who painted them. This we can partly arrive at by the
dates of their births and deaths. The galleries, as a
rule, are not arranged to help one much, though many
pictures now have dates on their frames. Still, it
requires a peculiar head — certainly, I think, one not

MAY 317

possessed by most women — to arrange these dates of
the painters' lives, overlapping each other as they do,
on the spur of the moment, in a way that is of the
smallest use for judging the merits of the pictures, and,
above all, the mind of the man that shines through his
work.

One should know the date of a picture, as in biogra-
phy everything depends upon the age at which incidents
occur. Men of genius often do at t-venty what is usu-
ally not done at forty ; so every now and then a painter
anticipates by centuries the thought or the execution of
future ages.

In accordance with the taste of her day, Maria
Farquhar gives five double -columned pages of her little
book to Raphael, and half a single column to Botticelli.
In this she did not differ from her contemporaries, for,
as Mr. Hewlett says in 'Earthwork out of Tuscany':
' Seriously, where in criticism do you learn of an earlier
painter than Perugino until you come to our day ? And
where now do you get the raptures over the Carracci and
Domenichino, and Guercino, and the rest of them, which
the last century expended upon their unthrifty soil ?
Ruskin found Botticelli ; yes, and Giotto. Roscoe never
so much as mentions either.'

I have four little daintily printed volumes published
in 1834 — an early work of the well-known authoress,
Mrs. Jameson, who has written so much on Italian art.
These books are not without interest to the student of
life, art, or art criticisms. The last two volumes are a
reprint of a still earlier work, which had a success in its
day, called 'The Diary of an Ennuye"e.' The book is
still interesting to me, not only for its dtmodte style,
but also as being a kind of lPot-Pourri' of the day.
This ' Diary of an Ennuy6e ' contains an account of the
author's stay at Florence, which is my reason for

3i8 MORE POT-POURRI

mentioning the book here. Her reflections are young
and genuine, and the courage with which she lays them
down gives them a human interest. I feel considerable
sympathy with what she says about Michael Angelo.
She thus speaks of the Medici statues : ' In a little
chapel in San Lorenzo are Michael Angelo's famous
statues — the Morning, the Noon, the Evening, and the
Night. I looked at them with admiration rather than
with pleasure ; for there is something in the severe and
overpowering style of this master which affects me dis-
agreeably, as beyond my feeling and above my
comprehension. These statues are very ill-disposed
for effect ; the confined cell (such it seems) in which
they are placed is so strangely disproportioned to the
awful and massive grandeur of their forms.

' There is a picture by Michael Angelo, considered a
chef-d'ceuvre, which hangs in the Tribune to the right
of the Venus. Now, if all the connoisseurs, with Vasari
at their head, were to harangue for an hour together on
the merits of this picture, I might submit in silence, for
I am no connoisseur ; but that it is a disagreeable, a
hateful picture, is an opinion which fire could not melt
out of me. In spite of Messieurs les Connoisseurs and
Michael Angelo's fame, I would die in it at the stake.
For instance, here is the Blessed Virgin — not the
"Vergine Santa d'ogni grazia piena," but a Virgin
whose brickdust- coloured face, harsh, unfeminine
features, and muscular, masculine arms give me the idea
of a washerwoman (con rispetto parlando!) — an infant
Saviour with the proportions of a giant ! And what
shall we say of the nudity of the figures in the back-
ground?— profaning the subject and shocking at once
good taste and good sense. A little further on the eye
rests on the divine Madre di Dio of Correggio. What
beauty, what sweetness, what maternal love and humble

MAY 319

adoration are blended in the look and attitude with
which she bends over her Infant ! '

Just as a contrast to this bald dislike of Michael
Angelo, which I more or less share, I will copy, as an
example of modern subtle scholarly criticism, a sentence
on the same picture from Pater's 'Renaissance' — a
book to be read indeed :

' When the shipload of sacred earth from the soil of
Jerusalem was mingled with the common clay in the
Campo Santo at Pisa, a new flower grew up from it,
unlike any flower men had seen before — the Anemone,
with its concentric rings of strangely blended colour,
still to be found by those who search long enough for it
in the long grass of the Maremma. Just such a strange
flower was that mythology of the Italian Renaissance
which grew up from the mixture of two traditions, two
sentiments — the sacred and the profane. Classical
story was regarded as so much imaginative material to
be received and assimilated. It did not come into men's
minds to ask curiously of science concerning the origin
of such story, its primary form and import, its meaning
for those who projected it. The thing sank into their
minds, to issue forth again with all the tangle about it
of medieval sentiment and ideas.

' In the Doni Madonna in the Tribune of the Uffizi,
Michael Angelo actually brings the pagan religion, and
with it the unveiled human form, the sleepy -looking
fauns of a Dionysiac revel, into the presence of the Ma-
donna, as simpler painters had introduced there other
products of the earth, birds or flowers ; while he has
given to that Madonna herself much of the uncouth
energy of the older and more primitive ' ' Mighty
Mother.'"

Is it possible to see side by side more different criti-
cisms of the same picture ? And it is not only the dif-

320 MORE POT-POURRI

ference of a young woman and a scholarly man ; it
means the immense march the world has made altogether
in the understanding of its own evolution.

To return to Mrs. Jameson. She runs on with her
criticisms through the sights of Florence. Most of the
pictures she admires are certainly not those that excite
the greatest admiration in these days. The name Botti-
celli is never once mentioned by her, any more than it is
thirty years later by George Eliot in her notes on Floren-
tine art in the diary published in her Life. Pater, on
the contrary, tells us that Sandro Botticelli is the only
contemporary mentioned, whether by accident or inten-
tion, by Leonardo in his treatise on painting.

I only possess the translation of this treatise pub-
lished in 1835. Just lately a new ' Life and Works' of
Leonardo, by Eugene Muntz, has been published by
Heinemann, but it is 42s. net.

To leave high things for low, Mrs. Jameson touches
on the society of the day at Florence and parties at the
Countess of Albany's, etc. She gives an amusing story
of a travelling young lord who, when presented with the
Countess of Albany's card, exclaimed :

' The Countess of Albany ! Ah ! — true — I remember !
Wasn't she the widow of Charles the Second who mar-
ried Ariosto ? ' There is in this celebrated Mvue a
glorious confusion of times and persons.

For those interested in the byways of history, a well-
known modern author, Vernon Lee, has written a 'Life'
of this Countess of Albany. I think it the most inter-
esting of Vernon Lee's books that I have read. It was
published in the ' Eminent Women' series — why, I can-
not imagine ; for it seems to me as incongruous as Haw-
thorne's ' Life ' being in the ' English Men of Letters,' or
Lady Hamilton's picture having a place in the National
Portrait Gallery.

MAY 321

Vernon Lee's ' Studies of the Eighteenth Century in
Italy' I have not read ; but if they are half as interest-
ing as this 'Life,' I have something to look forward to.
The pictures of even a portion of society in Florence
drawn in this 'Life' of the Countess of Albany set one
wondering how a hundred years can have brought about
such changes. Vernon Lee's later works, mostly about
Italy, 'Limbo and Other Essays' and 'Genius Loci,'
there seems no need for me to praise ; they have been so
recently in the reading public's mind, and so much
appreciated.

It seems to me very clearing to the mind to read
French or German criticisms at the same time as Eng-
lish, especially with regard to Italy, as at all times the
French, of whom I know most, take such an absolutely
different point of view. 'L'ltalie d'Hier,' by the broth-
ers De Goncourt, written in the winter of 1855-56, is
entirely devoid of what we should call 'the feeling for
Italy.' To read this description of Italy is very like
taking up a book illustrating the contents of the first
Exhibition of 1851, when all sense of the beautiful
seemed absolutely lost. Georges Sand, in her youthful
bitterness, exclaimed, in the 'thirties, that Italy was
' Peintures aux plafonds, ordure sous les pieds' ; but
that criticism is again of a totally different kind. Ed-
mond de Goncourt looks at a picture and says : ' La
Vierge chez ce peintre, c'est la Vierge du Vinci, mais
avec une expression courtisanesque.' The drawings by
one of the brothers in this book are rather clever, and
in describing a ball at the Pitti, in the Grand Duke's
time, he gives an absurd caricature of our English Min-
ister of the day, Lord Normanby, which no one who
remembers him can read now without a smile. The
book is well worth looking at as typical of French
criticism of that day, and anybody who cares to enjoy a

322 MORE POT-POURRI

strong literary contrast has only to take up afterwards
Paul Bourget's 'Sensations d'ltalie' (published in 1891,
and dedicated to Robert Lord Lytton by his affectionate
friend and admirer) and his most daintily illustrated
little gem called 'Un Saint,' published in 1894. Here
the forty years have indeed altered sentiment, feeling,
aspiration, and description. Both are French ; I prefer
the Bourget.

The famous 'Voyage en Italie' by H. Taine (1866)
is literature of a much more serious kind. It is descrip-
tive rather than critical in the modern sense, and the
chapter ' La Peinture Florentine' should be read by any-
one seriously interested in the Florence galleries. It
contains an enlightened sentence on the famous Venus
de' Medici, forcing one to remember — what so many for-
get—that the arms were a restoration by Bernini, and
are very likely the cause of much that fails to please in
this statue. What he says of the galleries are only
slight sketches, but these are by the hand of a master.
The end of the second volume is Venice ; the first vol-
ume is Rome.

'The Makers of Florence,' by Mrs. Oliphant, is a
most helpful book and one of her best. It should be
read, I think, before the more detailed ' Life and Times
of Savonarola,' by Professor Pasquale Villari, as the mind
then will be in a more receptive condition for absorbing
the greater detail of the larger book. It is almost in-
conceivable that Savonarola's skull formation should
have been as low as it is represented in the portrait re-
produced in this book of Mrs. Oliphant' s, with the head
covered with his Dominican cowl.

' The Life and Times of Savonarola' by Villari, trans-
lated as it is into English by his wife, has been lately
republished in a cheap edition by Fisher Unwin.

Signora Villari has also written a pretty little book

MAY 323

of her own, called 'On Tuscan Hills and Venetian
Waters.'

I have long had that amusing classic, the ' Memoirs
of Benvenuto Cellini ' by himself, translated by Thomas
Roscoe (1823), on the title-page of which is a saying of
Horace Walpole's : ' Cellini was one of the most extra-
ordinary men of an extraordinary age. His Life, writ-
ten by himself, is more amusing than any novel I know.'
This book was again translated into English by John
Addington Symonds, and published in 1888. It is
pleasanter reading than Roscoe' s, but the engraved por-
trait in the old book is infinitely better than in the new.

I found Symonds' ' Life of Michael Angelo' a book
of rare interest. Symonds is often criticised for inaccu-
racy of detail. The same accusation is always brought
against Froude ; but both writers have a power of pop-
ularising information which, joined to their gift for
vivid description, make one live in the past, in spite of
the atmosphere of modern thought through which they
present it.

Symonds' 'Italian Sketches,' which are so conven-
iently published in the Tauchnitz edition, speak of many
things in a charming way, but do not actually touch on
Florence itself.

Amongst the books I have been reading none seem
to me more - remarkable or stamped with a stronger
or more interesting individuality than Walter Pater's.
His 'Renaissance,' which he calls 'Studies in Art and
Poetry,' and ' Marius the Epicurean,' with its vivid word-
painting and its pictures of old Italy, so unchanged
even to-day, are books which must be immensely admired
by those who read them, or not liked at all. They are
certainly not light reading, and more fitted for the study
than the railway carriage ; but they are books which I
believe will live in English literature when many of the

324 MORE POT-POURRI

productions of this period will have passed into the un-
known. They are full of study, thought, and knowledge,
and it is not only a knack of beautiful writing which is
their chief attraction and merit.

Many years ago two old ladies, Susan and Joanna
Homer, lived in Florence, and wrote one of the first and
the most satisfactory of the detailed guide-books I have
ever seen, called ' Walks in Florence.' An interesting
new French book by A. Geffroy, called ' Etudes Itali-
ennes,' published in 1898, 1 thought worth reading, as it
gives another historical view of the Renaissance ; Art
being only indirectly alluded to. The chapters are on
' Les Grands Medicis,' 'Savonarola,' 'Guichardin.' He
quotes of 'Laurent,' 'Ce refrain reste populaire qui
resonne encore comme un e"cho lointain et gracieux de
la Renaissance !

Quanto fe bella giovinezza
Che si fugge tuttavia !
Chi vuol esser lieto, sia,
Di doman non c' e certezza.'

The second part of the book is called ' Rome Monu-
mentale.' In this there is a chapter on ' La le"gende de la
Cenci,' in which he also sweeps away the whole story.

Only last summer a book appeared called ' Tuscan
Artists, their Thought and Work,' by Hope Rea. Sir
W. B. Richmond writes the preface, and says : 'I desire
success to this little volume, so interesting, so full of
sympathy with those various emotions whose expression
in all forms of art has made Italy their foster mother.'

A book has just been sent me, called ' Stray Studies
from England and Italy,' by John Richard Green, the
author of the famous 'Short History.' The title is not
quite correct, as there is an excellent chapter or two on
the south of France, and an exceedingly interesting his-
torical paper on the home of our Angevin kings, which

MAY 325

was also the home of the Renaissance in France ; and it
has a still earlier interest for the modern English tourist
who rides through Touraine by the Loire to Saumur, for
as Mr. Green says, ' Nothing clears one's ideas about the
character of the Angevin rule, the rule of Henry II., or
Richard or John, so thoroughly as a stroll through
Anjou.' Another charming chapter is 'The Florence of
Dante.' In fact, I have most thoroughly enjoyed this
little gem of desultory information.

For serious modern criticism of Italian painters and
their work, I have found nothing that has interested me
so much and which seems to me so new as Mr. Bernhard
Berenson's three little volumes — ' The Venetian Painters
of the Renaissance,' 'The Florentine Painters of the
Renaissance,' and 'The Central Italian Painters of the
Renaissance.' The author evidently aims at represent-
ing the modern scientific school of art criticism, started,
as far as I know, by Giovanni Morelli. The indexes at
the end of each volume will be found valuable, though
many of Mr. Berenson's conclusions will be cavilled at ;
and his attributions of pictures, differing, as they do,
from the official catalogues, raise much antagonism.

Where doctors differ, the public may be amused, and
art critics of the future must worry out their various
opinions.

'Italian Literature,' by Richard Garnett, is one of
those books for which the public ought to feel grateful,
as it condenses an incredible amount of labour and
study into a very small, convenient volume. It brings
us down to the present day, D'Annunzio's novels, etc.

In 1897 Mr. John Morley published one of his bril-
liant lectures, delivered in the Sheldonian Theatre, on
Machiavelli. He begins by a reference to Dante's liken-
ing of worldly fame to the breath of the wind, that
blows now one way, now another, and changes name as

326 MORE POT-POURRI

it changes quarter. He says of Machiavelli : ' In our
age, when we think of the chequered course of human
time, of the shocks of irreconcilable civilisations, of war,
trade, faction, revolution, empire, laws, creeds, sects, we
seek a clue to the vast maze of historic and prehistoric
fact. Machiavelli seeks no clue to his distribution of
good and evil. He never tries to find a moral interpre-
tation for the mysterious scroll. We obey laws that we
do not know, but cannot resist. We can only make an
effort to seize events as they whirl by, and to extort
from them a maxim, a precept, or a principle, to serve
our immediate turn. Fortune, he says — that is, Provi-
dence, or else circumstances, or the stars — is mistress of
more than half we do. What is her deep secret, he
shows no curiosity to fathom. He contents himself
with a maxim for the practical man ("Prince," xxv.),
that it is better to be adventurous than cautious, for
Fortune is a woman and, to be mastered, must be boldly
handled.'

Mr. Morley's defence of Machiavelli is on the lines of
his concluding words : ' It is true to say that Machiavelli
represents certain living forces in our actual world; that
science, with its survival of the fittest, unconsciously
lends him illegitimate aid ; that "he is not a vanishing
type, but a constant and contemporary influence." This
is because energy, force, will, violence, still keep alive in
the world their resistance to the control of justice and
conscience, humanity and right. In so far as he repre-
sents one side in that eternal struggle, and suggests one
set of considerations about it, he retains a place in the
literature of modern political systems and European
morals.7

I wind up by taking from my list of books that were
recommended to me a few I have not yet had time to
read: 'Christ's Folk in the Apennine,' by Miss Alex-

MAY 327

ander; 'Roadside Songs of Tuscany,' by the same; 'A
Nook in the Apennines,' by Leader Scott; 'Italian
Sketches,' by Mrs. Ross; 'Histoire des Medicis,' by
Dumas ; ' Une Annee a Florence : Impressions de Voy-
age,' by Dumas ; 'Italian Commonwealth, or Common-
wealth of Florence,' by Trollope.

Last year, on May 26th, I left my Surrey garden for
three months. The account of this time I had abroad
and the return in August will bring my year to its
conclusion.

My spring gardening was spoilt by the feeling that
the buds I had watched so carefully would be seen in
flower by others and not by myself ; and there is no
denying I left home with a considerable wrench. The
garden looked very full, but green and flowerless ; only
one or two large Oriental Poppies were out. I do not
know why, but I travelled by night to Paris, resting
some hours in an hotel in order to go through by the
Cenis train, arriving at Florence early in the evening
instead of in the middle of the night. I might just as
well have slept in Paris ; it would have cost no more
than the six hours' rest. I started from there to travel
alone, for the first time in my life.

I did not want to feel sad or lonely, which would
have been foolish, as I was deliberately going to please
myself ; and I could not help smiling as I thought over
a sentence in the journal of Marie Bashkirtseff, and
what she says about travelling with one's family : ' Je
comprend qu'on soit heureux de vivre en famille, et je
serais malheureuse seule. On peut aller faire des achats
en famille, aller au Bois en famille, quelquefois au
Theatre. On peut §tre malade en famille, faire des
cures en famille, enfin tout ce qui est de la vie intime et
des choses ne"cessaires ; mais voyager en famille ! ! !
C'est comme si on prenait plaisir a valseravec sa tante.

328 MORE POT-POURRI

C'est ennuyeux mortellement, et inline quelque pen
ridicule.'

Railway travelling is always such a joy to me. I
never know which I like best — looking out of the win-
dow, or feeling that I can read in peace without the
disturbances which are perpetually occurring elsewhere.
Going through France, I am always struck afresh by
the thinly populated look of the country, except just
near the towns.

I had in my travelling bag a cutting from the ' Daily
Telegraph ' of January 5th, 1898 : Mr. Gladstone's
account of Hallam, — a remarkably interesting paper,
one of those rare gifts sometimes bestowed upon us by
the daily press. It must have been almost the last, if
not quite the last, thing of any importance the old man
ever wrote.

Has it ever been explained why the recollections of
youth are so engraven on the brain and flash out in old
age with such vivid clearness? Educated and unedu-
cated, clever and stupid, all seem to share the same
experience. The dullest of old people are interesting if
allowed to talk of their youth and themselves. The only
drawback is that they enjoy repeating over and over
again what they remember. Gladstone's half-jealous
criticism of Hallam spending eight months in Italy
between Eton and Cambridge includes so excellent a
description of travelling in the days that are gone that
it haunted me as I flew and rushed in my express in one
bound from Paris to Florence :

' The agencies of locomotion have, within the last
seventy years, been not only multiplied, but trans-
formed. We then crept into and about countries ; we
now fly through them. When Arthur Hallam went with
his family to Italy, there was not so much as a guide-
book. It was shortly afterwards Mrs. Starke, under the

MAY 329

auspices of Murray, founded that branch of literature,
and within the compass of one very moderate volume
expounded in every particular the whole continent of
Europe. But this is only the outside of the case. A
visit to Italy was then the summit of a young man's
aspirations ; it now supplies some half-dozen rapid
stages in larger tours, where we run much risk of losing
in discipline and mental stimulus what we gain in mile-
age. When it took sixteen or eighteen days to post to
Rome, each change of horses was an event. The young
traveller could not but try to make the most of what he
had bought so dear. Scene, history, and language now
flash before the eye ; then they soaked into the soul.
Men were then steeped in the experiences of Italy ; they
are now sprinkled with the spray. Its scenery, its art,
its language, which was a delight and luxury to learn ;
its splendid literature ; its roll of great men, among
whom Dante himself might serve to build up the entire
fame of a nation ; and its place in history, which alone
connects together the great stages of human civilisation
— all these constituted a many-sided power which was
brought to bear almost in a moment on the mind of
Arthur Hallam. I knew it, for I suffered by it. The
interval between his progress and my own, always long,
became such that there was no joining hands across it.
I was plodding on the beaten and dusty path, while
he was

Where the lost lark wildly sings,
Hard by the sun . '

Everyone takes with him to Florence Mr. Hare's
'Cities of Central Italy.' In his introduction to the
'Cities of Northern Italy,' he puts it well as regards the
changes that have in my life -time come over travelling.
I can remember things as he describes them :

330 MORE POT-POURRI

1 The old days of Italian travel are beginning to pass
out of recollection — the happy old days, when, with
slow -trotting horses and jangling bells, we lived for
weeks in onr vetturino carriage as in a house, and made
ourselves thoroughly comfortable there ; halting at mid-
day for luncheon, with pleasant hours for wandering
over unknown towns and gathering flowers and making
discoveries in the churches and convents near our
resting-place. All that we then saw remains impressed
on our recollection as a series of beautiful pictures set
in a framework of the homelike associations of a quiet
life, which was gilded by all that Italian loveliness alone
can bestow of its own tender beauty. The slow
approach to each long -heard -of but unseen city —
gradually leading up, as the surrroundings of all cities
do, to its own peculiar characteristics — gave a very
different feeling towards it from that which is produced
by rushing into a railway station.'

This is all perfectly true ; but when we think that
hundreds can now see and enjoy the great cities of Italy,
which in old days was only the privilege of the idle, the
rich, and the few, we can without regret give up the
more romantic methods of travelling of bygone days.

The only book I had with me, given me before I left
for Florence, was called 'Earthwork out of Tuscany,'
being ' impressions and translations ' of Maurice Hew-
lett (J. M. Dent & Co., 1895). It describes Florence,
not as I saw it, but in autumn and early winter, the
usual tourist time. It is very modern in tone, and
although slightly affected, yet the enthusiasm and
delight in Italy are as great as, or even greater than,
those of writers of a past generation. His preface,
which he calls ' Proem,' is an apologia for writing at all
on such well-known ground, for he feels his book must
risk the charge of being ' a rtchaufft of Paul Bourget

MAY 331

and Walter Pater with ana lightly culled from Symonds,
and perchance the questionable support of ponderous
references out of Burckhardt.' My journey was short-
ened for me by the pleasure I got from reading this
book, and it made me feel glad, as I sat in the train,
that I was on my way to this Italy of undying interest.

I had, of course, the usual luggage scare at the
Custom House at Modane in the middle of the night. I
was idiotic from sleep, and the officials declared my
boxes were not in the train. I felt like the French cab-
man with a heavy load when a passing friend asked him
how he was. ' Pour moi, je suis plonge dans la misere
jusqu'au cou.; Just as the train was starting, to my
intense relief I spied my boxes, and could once more
complacently smile and remember a nice little story I
had just been told. An American lady, having lost all
her luggage, said : 'Any great trial sent by the
Almighty I can bear, but these collateral smacks are too
much for anyone to endure.' How true it is !

One of the drawbacks of the facility of modern travel
is that it enables people who have a short holiday —
say, of three weeks — to rush through Italy from place
to place. Disappointed with the climate, they imagine
sunshine is to be found further on. I heard a young
man, who spent his three weeks at Rome, Florence and
Venice, say that he had ' done that tour, and that Flor-
ence was the vilest climate on the face of God's earth.'
Whereas a great deal more pleasure is to be had, and
one gains a much more lasting impression, by going
straight from home and spending the whole time in
one place.

Everyone warned me so much against the heat I
should find in Italy in June. But I began my disap-
pointment by finding the Alps all cloud and rain, and,
in spite of its being the last days of May, the weather

332 MORE POT-POURRI

was quite cold. At Turin the sky was as inky black as
in London. The torrents were bursting, and the roads
floating with water over black mud. As we got near
Genoa, of which absolutely nothing can be seen from
the railway, it was like a gray July day at home, the
hay cut and the Acacias in flower.

The journey along the seashore is a most irritating
series of tunnels. When I arrived at Florence, all lone-
liness was at an end. Kind friends met me, and we
drove through the town, which I had not visited, except
for one night, since I was twenty. In the gray, damp
drizzle it did not look its best, but no weather can spoil
the majestic appearance of the Ilex and Cypress avenue
outside the Roman gate — the approach to what was
once a Medicean villa. Through this we had to drive to
reach the village of Arcetri, where my journey ended.

The joy of being once more in Italy was, indeed,
great ; my pension close — to the Torre del Gallo — was
a large, fine house, quite empty. All the upper floor was
my own, and I could roam from room to room and enjoy
the most beautiful views conceivable. The whole country
is like a gigantic rockwork — hill and vale and sloping
sides and varied aspects, and all that can be imagined as
perfect for the growth of vegetation. I was rather dis-
appointed at the excessive greenness of everything on
my arrival. Even the Olives, in spite of the green corn
underneath them, looked green — not gray — from the
masses of small yellow flowers that covered them. One
cannot look at all this redundant vegetation without
realising that Florence must be blessed with an abun-
dant rainfall.

They talk here of the probability of a wet ' San Gio-
vanni' as we talk of * St. S within '—meaning, of course,
there is generally much wet about that time.

The Italian papers were naturally full of Mr. Glad-

MAY 333

stone's recent death, and one of them published his
translation of Cowper's hymn, 'Hark, my soul,' which
seems already, at the end of a year, almost a literary
curiosity :

Senti, senti, anima mia
(Fu il Signer che sentia)
Gesu parla e parla a te :
' Di, figliuolo, ami Me ? »

' Te legato svincolai,
Le tue piaghe risanai,
Fuorviato rimenai,
Notte e dl per te mutai.'

' Vien la madre a quando a quando
II suo parto obliando ?
Donna il pub, non posso lo,
Mai non viene in Me 1' obblio.'

1 L ' amor Mio sempre dura,
Alto piu d' ogni altra altura,
Tocca gia le nere porte,
Franco e fido, in flno a morte.

' Tu la gloria Mia vedrai,
Se le piene grazie avrai,
Te del trono meno al pie ;
Di, figliuolo, ami Me ? '

' Ah, Signer, mi duole il core
Pel mio stanco e fiaeco amore,
T' amo pure, e vo' pregare
Che ti possa meglio amare.

My food in my out-of-town pension, as I had it all to
myself, consisted of vegetables, macaroni, rice, Alpine
strawberries, etc. I learnt the secret of the delicious
little vegetable they call 'Zucche,' which I had often
heard of. It is called in the English Vilmorin vegetable
book Italian Vegetable Marrow, 'an extremely distinct

334 MORE POT-POURRI

variety, stems not running very thick, and short. The
luxuriant foliage forms a regular- bush. All through
Italy, where this gourd is very commonly grown, the
fruit is eaten quite young, just before the faded flower
drops off. The plants, deprived of their undeveloped
fruits, continue to flower for several months most pro-
fusely, each producing a great number of young gourds,
which, gathered in that state, are exceedingly tender
and delicately flavoured.' ' This should be tried in Eng-
land,' adds Mr. Robinson. The same excellent way of
gathering them quite young might, I think, be adopted
for other gourds and Vegetable Marrows.

JUNE

What I saw from my window at Arcetri — Fireflies — Cypresses —
Youthful memories in the ' Caseine ' — Deodar in cloister of
San Marco — Fete at Santa Margharita — Villas — Gardens —
Want of colour in Tuscany at midsummer — Slight allusion
to picture galleries — The Cabinet of Cardinal Leopoldo de'
Medici — June 24th in Florence — Botanical Garden — Silence
of birds and summer sounds.

June 1st. — I alluded in May to a book called 'Earth-
work out of Tuscany.' The introductory chapter con-
tains the following passage, which comes home to me most
strongly, as I begin to write a few notes about my visit
to Florence : ' Has any city, save perhaps Cairo, been
so written out as Florence ? . . . . Florence has often
been sketched before — putting Browning aside, with his
astounding fresco music — by Euskin and George Eliot
and Mr. Henry James, to name only masters. But that
is no reason why I should not try my 'prentice hand.
Florence alters not at all ; men do. My picture, poor as
you like, shall be my own.' I, too, can only, in great
humility, beg you to accept this little account of my
June near Florence, ' not as what I would fain offer, but
what I am able to present.'

June 2nd. — The weather is getting finer and warmer,
and I am more and more delighted with my large, empty
house and with the views all round. A more perfect
spot could not be found even here. The actual town I
cannot see ; it is hidden by the undulating ground that
rises behind San Miniato, ending in the Torre del Gallo,
close to the villa where Galileo was exiled, when blind

(335)

336 MORE POT-POURRI

and old, to die. Tradition says that he worked from the
top of this tower. I wonder whether he did, or whether
Milton was right in saying that he studied the moon
from the top of Fiesole. Milton only saw Galileo on his
second visit to Florence, as during his first visit the
astronomer was kept a close prisoner by the Inquisition.

What was really at the bottom of Galileo's persecu-
tion ? Religious people thought it militated against the
dignity and importance of man that this planet of his
should go spinning round the sun — with men's hopes
and feelings hanging on by their eyelids — instead of
remaining quiet, in a dignified manner, while the sun
did its duty in going round, warming and lighting,
the earth.

Galileo's blindness seems to have had a 'prophetic
fascination ' for Milton, and the deep impression left by
the sight of the Tuscan astronomer is shown by the way
in which Milton once or twice alludes to him in
' Paradise Lost,' not published till nearly thirty
years later.

Mr. Stephen Phillips' fine poem to Milton blind,
might almost apply to Galileo :

The hand was taken by Angels who patrol
The evening, or are sentries to the dawn,
Or pace the wide air everlastingly.
Thou wast admitted to the presence, and deep
Argument heardest and the large design
That brings this world out of woe to bliss.

Ouida says of Galileo's tower in 'Pascarel,' perhaps
the most imaginative and delightful of her Italian books
(so true to nature, and so false to human nature ! ) :
' The world has spoilt most of its places of pilgrimage,
but the old star -tower is not harmed as yet where it
stands amongst its quiet garden ways and grass -grown
slopes, up high amongst the hills, with sounds of drip-

JUNE 337

ping water on its court, and wild wood flowers thrusting
their bright heads through its stones. It is as peaceful,
as simple, as homely, as closely girt with blossoming
boughs and with tulip -crimsoned grapes now as then,
when, from its roof in the still midnight of far-off time,
its master read the secret of the stars.'

But to Galileo at seventy and blind, I wonder what
was the use of the old fighting tower? The sight of
it was a ceaseless joy to me, flanked by splendid
Cypresses, standing ochre colour against the blue, or
dark against some 'billowy bosomed cloud7; and at
evening it was 'one red tower that drinks its fill out of
the sunset sky.'

This was as I looked to the east. Moving round to
the south, the view widened and spread right up the
valley of the Arno, where the little puff of gray smoke
curled along the base of the hill, and showed where the
train sped on its way to Rome, through the mountains,
as they folded one over the other in tints of pearly gray.
Still more south came the hill where Vallombrosa
stands, and then a long stretch of villa -dotted low hills.
At the end of the ridge was a little grove of pointed
Cypresses, and the well-known favourite peasant church
of all the country round stood out on its own little hill
in the middle distance. Towards the west came a
hillock crowned with a flat, white villa, cut by the
Cypresses that surround nearly all the houses, sinking
and swelling with Olive and Vine towards the distant
view of the Certosa of the Val d'Arno. And so round
to the whole beautiful broad valley running towards
Pisa, ending in the blue shadows of the Carrara Moun-
tains, with the top of Bellosguardo in the middle
distance sharp and black against the gray mist of the
plain. Evening after evening I used to try and get
home to see the sunsets from my windows, as nowhere

338 MORE POT-POURRI

else were they so beautiful, and nowhere else did the
air blow so fresh, and yet so warm, as in my home of
the winds, the 'Pension d'Arcetri.'

The only sadness that I know of in these southern
summers is that the twilights are so short. I missed
much the long, pale primrose evening skies of June,
which at home throw up their faint northern brightness
right into the indigo of the star skies of night, and
almost meet Aurora at her waking.

But the dark evenings are wanted to show the beauty
of those wonderful fairy -like things that flit about in
millions under the Olive trees and in the corn. I had
never seen the fireflies since the summer I passed under
Fiesole, when I was a little child of ten, but I had not
forgotten them. The poetry that hangs around them is
endless ; their natural history is prosaic. They are
beetles. Both sexes are luminous, though that is not
the general belief in Italy. They are nearly related to
our glowworm. The colour of the fireflies is warmer
and more golden than the blue light of the glowworm,
and their beauty is enhanced and made more mysterious
because the light comes and goes, and shows much more
brightly at intervals. These fireflies are usually only to
be met with in quite the south of Europe, but in fine
hot summers they can be seen in rarer numbers as far
north as Switzerland, and even the middle of Germany.
The Italians call them lucciole, and associate them with
all sorts of pretty poetical stories. Ouida says : 'One
cannot wonder that the poets love them, and that the
children believe them to be fairies carrying their little
lanterns on their road to dance in the magic circle under
the leaves in the wood. Some say they die in a day ;
some say they live on for ages. Who shall tell ? They
look always the same.'

On one side of my house was a much -neglected, but

JUNE 339

lovely little square, walled garden with beautiful tall
iron gates. The beds and paths, edged with stone, were
of a simple, formal pattern, which gave great dignity to
the weedy little wilderness ; and there were the usual
large terracotta pots with strong, well -grown Lemon
trees in them, the pride of the Tuscan peasant's heart.
The flowers on them scented the air ; the peasants sell
the pale fruit at a special price all the summer through
in the town, as we sell glass -grown Peaches. I think
that if we tried to grow plants of this sort of Lemon
at home in pots or tubs, it would be far better than
trying to grow the more delicate Oranges usually seen
on terraces in England. I was told I should find it
too hot, but I never did once. Indeed, at first I was
disappointed ; it was not warm enough. But in Eng-
land they had snow early in June. The Irises, the
Tulips, all the wild spring flowers were over. I found
the fields in places filled with a curious orchidaceous-
looking plant which, terrible weed as it was, I thought
would look beautiful as a spring pot -plant. It turned
out to be a cruel parasitical growth, called Orobanche
pruinosa, which grows on the roots of the Broad Beans,
destroying whole crops — to the ruin of bad farmers.
It also grows on the roots of Geraniums, I am told ;
which will be convenient in making it a pot -plant at
home.

My villa pension was surrounded with fine Cypresses
of all sizes and ages. I wonder when and how they
came to be planted round the houses ? Some say the
peasants from all time have planted one as a kind of
dower when a daughter was born in the house. In
justification of this, Mr. Loudon says that Pliny tells
several extraordinary stories about the durability of the
wood, and that the plantations of Cypresses were cut
down every thirteen years for poles, rafters, joists, etc.,

340 MORE POT-POURRI

which made the wood so profitable that a plantation of
Cypresses was thought a sufficient marriage portion for
a daughter. Theophrastus states that it grew naturally
in the isle of Crete, and that those who wish to have the
Cypress flourish must procure a little of the earth from
the isle of Cyprus for it to grow in. The early botanists
supposed that the upright and spreading Cypresses were
male and female of the same plant — C. horizontalis the
male, C. stricta the female. This is not the case. The
horizontal Cypress is quite a distinct species, which
comes from the Levant. The evergreen Cypress is a
flame -shaped, tapering, and cone -like tree. The male
catkins are yellowish, about three inches long, and very
numerous. The female catkins are much fewer and of
a roundish oblong form ; but both grow on the same
tree. I have a sentiment for Cypresses that amounts to
a passion. All my life they have remained in my mind
as emblems of the fairest land I have ever known.

June 5th. — To-day being warm, I went down to
Florence ; and dropping my companion — who had to
call on a sick friend — I went on alone to the 'Cascine,'
the well-known public park, which I had not seen for
over forty years. The ghost of my youth sat beside me
in the little shabby carriage ; and as I drove along the
well -remembered alley, with the racecourse on the right,
and the shaded roads where I used to ride, the past all
came back to my mind. To the outward eye all seemed
very much the same — a little smartened up and mod-
ernised perhaps. As I drew up on the Piazzone, there
was another carriage with a mother and three young
daughters, as we used to be. It was a strange, lonely,
sepulchral sort of feeling — that in all that gay crowd
very few were even born when we lived in Florence and I
used to go daily to the 'Caseine' and dance half the night
through at balls. That winter at Florence seemed to me

JUNE 341

at the time to be the last of my youth, and it altered
all my life.

How strange are the depressions of youth ! Life
seems over when really it has scarce begun ! It was in
such a mood I left Florence at twenty. De Musset
has expressed this sadness of youth with concentrated
pathos :

J'ai perdu ma force et ma vie

Et mes amis et ma gaiet6 ;

J'ai perdu jusqu'a la fiert6
Qui faisait croire a mon g&iie.

Quand j'ai connu la ve'rite'

J'ai cru que c'6tait une amie;

Quand je 1'ai comprise et sentie
J'en 6tais d6ja de'godte'.

Et pourtant elle est e"ternelle,
Et ceux qui se sont pass6 d'elle
Ici bas ont tout ignored

Dieu parle, il faut qu'on lui r6ponde,

Le seul bien qui me reste au monde

Est d' avoir quelquefois pi euro".

As I drove back into Florence the air was heavy with
the perfume of the Lime trees — such Lime trees as I
have never seen before. The leaves are few and small,
and were absolutely hid by the size and number of the
yellow flowers, with their big sheaths on each side like
wings. The evening sky was reflected in the Arno in the
old, familiar way, and the air was warm and still. I
called for my friend, and once more shut up the memory
of the past in that far-away corner of the brain where
such things remain. We drove through the town, and I
first saw the Duomo with its facade completed. In my
day, of course, it was rough bricks, with the holes for the
scaffolding left in it. Beautifully as it is done, and I do

342 MORE POT-POURRI

think it is a noble piece of restoration, the new facade
at first gave me a shock. It seemed to cheapen Giotto's
lovely tower, and made one feel that what had seemed
inimitable could be copied.

My first fortnight at Florence was spent in driving
about seeing old gardens, and dropping into dim
churches on summer evenings before returning home.
My critical feelings were all absolutely dead. I could do
nothing but gasp and admire, and with it always the
dim memory of somehow having seen it all before, as in
a dream. The churches in the fading evening light
looked very solemn and very beautiful — portals to death,
perhaps, rather than windows into heaven. But I do
not know that I liked them less for that. I found
Florence very little changed in its general aspect, in
spite of the many alterations which have been such pain
and grief to the English inhabitants. It is almost, if
not quite, unspoilable. There are trams and omnibuses
and incongruous things, no doubt ; but, oh ! it is won-
derfully unchanged — from the time-worn stones of its
pavements to the black eaves of its roofs against the
brilliant sky.

One need not be in Florence to give one's entire
sympathy to the good people there who are trying their
utmost to save the beautiful old city from destruction.
To destroy old streets to build hotels may defeat its own
object, for if Florence becomes less beautiful the demand
for hotel rooms may diminish ; though, honestly, I
think that, to keep up the influx of strangers, sanitary
precautions and a certain content among the people
are more necessary still. Five thousand English and
other tourists left Florence the week before I arrived, in
consequence of a very slight riot which followed on the
two days' Socialist outbreak at Milan. The departure of
strangers means ruin to the hotel -keepers and poverty

JUNE 343

to all those they employ ; so my sympathy to a certain
extent goes with the difficulties of the Italian Govern-
ment, who have to consider the material benefit to the
city and its people that may come from wider streets and
bridges. When I see protests such as have appeared
lately in the columns of our newspapers, a feeling of
shame always comes over me at the wholesale destruction
that has gone on within my memory in our own poor
old London, and which few people think about, — for
instance, the destruction of Temple Bar, because it was
thought too expensive to make a road each side of it.
Also the clearing away of sixteen or eighteen of Wren's
beautiful churches. I would far rather see them used in
some way for the people's good than destroyed. I can-
not see why they should not be put to some useful
service, as the monasteries and convents have been in
France and Italy. If this is sacrilege, surely it is much
more so wantonly to destroy ! At least, we might still
have the beautiful spires of the kind which Mr. Watson
describes :

It soars like hearts of hapless men who dare
To sue for gifts the gods refuse to allot ;

Who climb forever toward they know not where,
Baffled forever by they know not what.

Not to speak of the hideous spoiling of the Thames
by the railway and other bridges, narrow streets and old
houses are constantly pulled down. Only the other day
the picturesque almshouses of Westminster ceased to
exist. Last, but not least, Wren's work is being disfig-
ured, as most people feel, by the modern decorations in
St. Paul's. I often wish a deputation of influential
Italians, with a petition signed by hundreds of non-
influential names, would come here and protest against
this destruction of old buildings and our many other

344 MORE POT-POURRI

municipal shortcomings. May the Italians respect their
lovely buildings ! — and I believe they will — better than
we do. They certainly restore — with apparently only
the wish to copy and maintain — a great deal better than
any other European nation I know. I cannot make up
my mind that in this they are wrong, in spite of the con-
stant protests of the Anti- Restoration Society, with
whose work I have been in much sympathy all my life.
It seems hard to say that the beautiful buildings of the
Middle Ages ought to be allowed to fall into ruins, and
the effort to preserve what we admire will, I think, earn
the gratitude of the ages to come. In the eighteenth
century, ruins, as such, were admired even to the extent
of making artificial ones, and the landscape painters not
only steeped all nature's bright colours in black and
brown, but painted the ruined columns under thunder-
clouds, with Roman soldiers in togas walking about. And
our grandfathers bought and admired their pictures !

June 6th. — When I was young, in Florence, a great
mystery hung over the convent of San Marco, as women
were not allowed to visit it, and we young ones thought
of it principally in connection with its perfumery shop,
where the Iris -root powder and pale pink lip -salve were
better than anywhere else. It was with a real feeling of
curiosity that I saw the interior and the famous frescoes
that have survived so many centuries. I found them
very sweet and child -like — these decorations of the little
cells by the humble Christian monk ; but I suppose I
had expected too much, for, as works of art, they disap-
pointed me. In the little square surrounded by the
cloister of San Marco, where Fra Girolamo sat sotto un
rosajo di rose Damaschine preaching to his contempora-
ries, the monks — or rather, I suppose, some unimagi-
native official who has charge of the public buildings in
Florence, has planted, instead of the gentle damask Rose

JUNE 345

and the Lavender and Rosemary, a huge flourishing Deo-
dar. No doubt this tree is beautiful enough on the high,
steep sides of the Lower Himalayas, but with its symmet-
rical growth, and the size to which it has already attained,
it is a most unsightly and inappropriate object in the
restricted cortile of Savonarola's monastery. It puts
everything out of all proportion, and is such an anach-
ronism ! Deodars are quite modern trees in Europe, and
are not pretty, even in villa gardens. I do wish it could
be cut down ; plain, daisy -spangled turf would be much
better. Nothing is so striking or so general as the want
of imagination in planting. Sometimes plants are put
in entirely out of character with the rest of a garden ;
another time trees are planted which, when they grow
well, entirely obscure the view or shut out the summer
sunset. One curious anachronism I have noticed is that
an artist, in painting a scene for the background of a
Greek or Roman play, introduces American plants in his
foreground ! So many places are merely spoilt in an
effort to improve them, and this is especially the case all
around Florence.

Of all that I have read about Florence since my
return, I think nothing is more attractively clever or
more full of character, both of the place and of the
writer, than a chapter called 'A Florentine Mosaic ' in
' Tuscan Cities,' a little volume by W. D. Howells, the
American. It is published in the 'English Library'
series at Leipzig. Half the book is about Florence. It
is a perfectly charming mixture of humour and history,
bewildered tourist and most cultivated man of letters.
It takes one so instantly into the very heart and core of
the Middle Ages that one purrs with a delightful feel-
ing of 'Oh, certainly ! Yes, I always did know all about
it.' Popes and parties, blacks and whites, the ins
and outs, etc. Art, which generally forms such a large

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portion of a book about Florence, is left out altogether,
or at any rate is only like a brilliant tapestry background
to his living, moving figures. It is so clear and so com-
prehensive that it satisfies the idle and whets the appe-
tite of those who wish to know more. Mr. Ho wells has
a masterly way of sketching, and his appreciation of the
cloisters is so real that, to my mind, he makes one feel
it would be worth while to go all the way to Florence to
see them and nothing else. Cloisters are, perhaps, the
most characteristic things in Italy. He thus writes :

' The thing that was novel to me, who found the
churches of 1883 in Florence so like the churches of
1863 in Venice, was the loveliness of the deserted
cloisters belonging to so many of the former. These
enclose nearly always a grass -grown space, where daisies
and dandelions began to abound with the earliest con-
sent of spring. Most public places and edifices in Italy
have been so much photographed that few have any
surprise left in them ; one is sure that one has seen them
before. But the cloisters are not yet the prey of this
sort of pre- acquaintance. Whether the vaults and walls
of the colonnades are beautifully frescoed, like those of
Santa Maria Novella or Santa Annunziata or San Marco,
or the place has no attraction but its grass and sculp-
tured stone, it is charming ; and these cloisters linger in
my mind as something not less Florentine in character
than the Ponte Vecchio or the Palazzo Publico. I
remember particularly an evening effect in the cloister
of Santa Annunziata, when the belfry in the corner,
lifted aloft in its tower, showed with its pendulous bells
like a great graceful flower against the dome of the
church behind it. The quiet in the place was almost
sensible ; the pale light, suffused with rose, had a deli-
cate clearness ; there was a little agreeable thrill of cold
in the air; there could not have been a more refined

JUNE 347

moment's pleasure offered to a sympathetic tourist
loitering homeward to his hotel.'

As I write, I feel 'Of course everyone knows this
book,' but it is often not so, and no one told me of it
till long after I got back. I experienced one of those
1 refined moments of pleasure ' when one beautiful June
afternoon — warm, but not one bit too hot — we drove
to the Certosa, and, sending the carriage round, walked
up its steep Olive slopes to the monastery. A few of
the white -robed monks still remained in possession. I
did not make out if they are renewed or not, but
their presence preserves the character of the place. I
had never seen it before ; for of course years ago, like
San Marco, it was not shown to women. The garden
was peaceful to a degree, shimmering in the golden-
veiled summer sunshine. Never did I see such lovely
lavender ; it was as different from our northern plant as
could be. The flowering part was just double as long,
and one mass of grey -blue flowers, which gave a general
effect in the garden as of blue haze. One side of the
cloister had been thrown down by the earthquake of
three years ago. They were beginning to repair it —
with the usual Italian patient fidelity in restoration.

No one who goes to the Certosa should fail to take
special notice of the remarkable pietra tombale — so
different from our dull interpretation of the ' tombstone '
— of Cardinal Lionardo Buonafede. I am told it is
often missed. This recumbent statue is as fresh and
well preserved as the day it was made, which is very
rare with any of these peculiar effigies. The figure of
the old Cardinal lies on the tessellated marble floor.
His head is propped by costly pillows, and he wears his
jeweled mitre. His stockinged feet and simply crossed
hands, with the long, straight draperies of his robe, are a
most perfect example of the realistic sculpture of the

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Middle Ages — as true as waxwork, with none of its vul-
garity— so different from the degeneracy of modern
Italian art. I wish I knew why it has been a Christian
custom to clothe the feet of the dead ; they are especially
beautiful. If all else is changed, they remain the same.

June 9th. — This being the Festival of Corpus
Christi, we went in the afternoon to the little church
close by of Santa Margharita. Ouida describes, much
better than I can do, ' the little, brown, square church,
with its bell clanging in the open tower high above in
the sweet air on the hills ; there is level grass all about
it ; and it has a cool, green garden, shut within walls on
every side except where a long parapet of red, dusky
tiles leaves open the view of the Valdarno ; underneath
the parapet there are other terraces of deep grass and
old, old Olive trees, in whose shade the orchids love to
grow and the blue Iris springs up in great sheaves of
sword -like leaves.

' There are trees of every sort in the cloistered gar-
den, the turf is rich and long, the flowers are tended
with the greatest care, the little sacristy grows red in
the sun, an Acanthus climbs against it ; the sacristan's
wife comes out to you plaiting her straw, and brings
you a cluster of her Roses ; you sit on the stone seat,
and lean over the parapet and look downward; birds flit
about you ; contadini go along the grass paths under-
neath and nod to you, smiling ; a delicious mingled
loveliness of Olive wood and Ilex foliage and blossom-
ing vineyards shelve beneath you ; you see all Florence
gleaming far below there in the sun, and your eyes
sweep from the snow that still lies on Vallombrosa to
the blue shadows of the Carrara range.

'It is calm and golden and happy here at Santa
Margharita's, high in the fragrant hill air, with the
Guelder Roses nodding above head, and the voices of

JUNE 349

the vine -dressers echoing from the leaf -veiled depths
below.'

That is an exact description of the spot ; we went
there often, and we, too, hung over the parapet and
thought of the tempo passato. I could see the little
church tower always from my bedroom window.

On this beautiful June afternoon we saw the most
picturesque and characteristic procession — the Host
carried from the church to the chapel of a villa about
half a mile off. The houses round, year by year, take
it in turns to be so honoured. The priests in general
were very ugly and common -looking, but the young
man who on this occasion carried the Host was superb,
like the Giorgione in the Pitti. The lighted candles in
the outdoor evening light, the white -robed priests, the
long procession of peasants, were most striking. Arriv-
ing at the villa, they passed to the chapel under a loggia,
the tessellated pavement of which was drawn out in a
beautiful coloured pattern made of the petals of flowers
— Poppies, Eoses, Larkspurs, the brilliant yellow
Broom — and all between the pattern filled in with little
leaves of bright green Box. The effect was to me quite
new and very decorative. The procession passed on
each side, and the priest alone, carrying the Host, was
esteemed worthy to walk straight down the middle of
this nature -coloured carpet. Nothing could have been
more rurally peaceful and lovely than the whole scene.
In the earlier days of the century we were taught to
believe the troubles of Italy, like the troubles of Ireland,
were owing to Catholicism. Now the theory is that the
Latin races are dying out ; but if this is true, is it cer-
tain they are dying of Catholicism ? Is it not quite
wonderfully clear the Italians have never lost their
Paganism ? I confess, as I watched the whole scene, I
could only think of Pater's opening to 'Marius the

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Epicurean,' in which he describes how the purer forms
of Paganism had lingered in the villages after the
triumph of Christianity — 'a religion of usages rather
than the facts of belief, and attached to very definite
things and places.' Then comes the description of the
1 little ' or private Ambarvalia in the home of the youth
Marius, and it almost exactly describes what I saw this
June day quite at the end of the nineteenth century.
'At the appointed time all work ceases ; the instru-
ments of labour lie untouched, hung with wreaths of
flowers ; while masters and servants together go in sol-
emn procession along the dry paths of vineyard and
cornfield. . . . The old Latin words of the Liturgy,
to be said as the procession moved on its way, though
their precise meaning has long since become unin-
telligible.

' Early on that day the girls of the farm had been
busy in the great portico, filling large baskets with
flowers cut short from branches of Apple and Cherry,
then in spacious bloom, to strew before the quaint
images of the gods — Ceres and Bacchus, and the yet
more mysterious Dea Dia — as they passed through the
fields, carried in their little houses on the shoulders of
white -clad youths, who were understood to proceed to
this office in perfect temperance, as pure in soul and
body as the air they breathed in the firm weather of
that early summer-time. The clean lustral water and
the full incense-box were carried after them.'

So far the description is exact. The butchery which
disgusted Marius, Christianity has swept away ; but
everything else remains almost entirely the same.

All trace of costume amongst the peasants has dis-
appeared even in this Arcetri neighbourhood, the most
simple and countrified side of Florence. The people,
from the outside, look well-to-do and comfortable, and

JUNE 351

on festal days the young of both sexes walk about the
roads in cheerful, happy bands. They never go in
couples, as we everlastingly see them on the same occa-
sions in England ; but the boys were together, and the
girls together. The figures of the women in the long,
plain skirts and coloured shirts struck me as very grace-
ful and dignified. George Eliot says of Romola : ' Let
her muffle herself as she will, everyone wants to see what
there is under her veil, for she has that way of walking
like a procession.' That is just what one may say of
many of these young Tuscan women. She also says :
' There has been no great people without processions,
and the man who thinks himself too wise to be moved by
them to anything but contempt is like the puddle that
was proud of standing alone while the river rushed by.'

All my early time at Florence was spent in driving
about, seeing villas, wandering through the poderes,
resting and drawing. For the amateur sketcher, what a
mental struggle it is ! — whether to give the time to
drawing, or to see all one can. One day we started at
eight, and drove up to Monte Sennaria, fifteen miles or
so, on the Bologna Road. This took us past the villa
we lived in as children. I found that all had been much
changed and grown up. Even the road — which in my
day passed between walls out of which grew the large,
handsome house — was now turned to the left, and the
space between it and the villa thickly planted with ever-
greens, thus entirely depriving it of its original Italian
character.

I can remember now the mysterious tremble with
which I used sometimes to lie awake at night and hear
the tinkle of the bell of the dead -cart, as it passed under
the windows up to the cemetery on the hill. I had been
told no coffins were used, and I always thought some
one might wake during the long drive. The morning

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we went to Monte Sennaria the weather was lovely, and,
though rather hot on starting, it soon got delicious ;
and as we reached the higher ground many spring
flowers remained. I particularly noticed quantities of
the blue Italian Borage, growing small and low on dried
banks, and a sheet of gentian -blue bloom. Grown in
good soil in English flower borders, it is coarse and
leafy, and flowers but little ; at least, that is my experi-
ence. I shall find it a most valuable plant in Surrey if
it will grow in poor, dry places. Last autumn, after I
got home, I immediately moved some of my plants of
Italian Borage to the driest, sunniest spot in the
garden. I shall see if it will flower as abundantly as it
did in Italy. The Bush or Italian Broom ought to be
sown every year in light soils, as it is such a useful
July -flowering plant, and rarely seen — not being quite
hardy — in Surrey.

The villas of the rich that I saw round Florence—
and, of course, there are a great many which I did not
see— are to be recognised by the fact that the Vine and
Olive, Lemon and Pomegranate, Fig and Mulberry, are
turned out for the planting of Laurels, Deodars and
other conifers, Rhododendrons, and coarse -growing, un-
pruned shrubs. The beautiful old walls are often lev-
elled to the ground, to make a slope of coarse -growing
grass ; or the wall formerly used for the trained and
well -pruned Vine is smothered with a mass of untended
creepers. The newly planted Crimson Rambler is doing
very well and making excessive growth, though it will
never be a general favourite, as it flowers too late and is
not a marketable Rose ; so the gardeners despise it, which
is lucky, as its colour is not good. The greatest crime
of all, as regards the spoiling of Italian gardens, is
destroying the effect of space and coolness, and at the
same time entirely shutting out the view by planting

JUNE 353

trees — say, even a row of Poplars. The old gardens, as
perhaps Dante and Boccaccio saw them, are now smoth-
ered in Virginia Creeper, and made to look as much like
a villa at Hampstead or Putney as possible. Magnolias
are crowded out, and Camellias seem no longer culti-
vated (I suppose, because they are out of fashion in
English conservatories) ; and instead of the cool, gray
gravel, so easily kept raked and weeded in the old days,
unsatisfactory grass paths are attempted. In the garden
that I especially remember, having spent months there
twice in my life, the view towards the city and the Val
d'Arno right away to the Carraras — which on favoured
evenings are rubies or sapphires or beaten gold against
the sky — all this, so ineffaceably impressed on my
memory, is now hidden from sight by a dark, gloomy,
tangled mass of evergreens. As regards the modern
treatment of newly made gardens in Florence, it is only
fair to say that I saw them much too late, all attention
being given to make them beautiful up to the end of
May, as at about that time most of the English visitors
fly northward.

The gardens which gave me most pleasure were those
which had remained in the hands of Italians and re-
tained their old character. All over the world the
English have an insane, inartistic, though perhaps
natural desire, not to develop the capabilities of the soil
and climate in which they are forced to live, which
would give a real interest to every plot of cultivated
ground inhabited by the white man, but to have a gar-
den as like 'home' as possible — to make a lawn, which
fails and is ugly, and to plant a shrubbery, which grows
apace and chokes everything really worth growing.

I got last year from Seville a letter describing what a
southern garden should be : ' The Alkasar garden is
the most beautiful I ever saw: very neglected as regards

354 MORE POT-POURRI

individual plants, but so lovely as a whole. The beds
are all sunk. You walk between dwarf Myrtle hedges
on tiled, paved, or brick paths, and every now and then
you come to a round point with coloured tile seats.
Some of the outside Myrtle hedges are waist -high and
very fine. The beds are eighteen inches below the path,
and again divided by little Myrtle hedges six inches
high (no doubt the origin of our Box edgings). They
are mostly filled with Violets and sweet-scented shrubs,
and above tower great Magnolias, Lemons, Oranges,
Verbenas, Heliotrope, Jasmines in clumps, and a host of
other things I do not know the names of. Here and
there the path leads to a great raised marble tank or
Moorish bath. There are innumerable small fountains
sunk and tiled ; round one of these is a great tiled walk
with Orange trees sunk in round holes about two feet
deep, making a fine double avenue. I fancy the garden
is pretty much as it was originally laid out by the
Moors. I wish you could see it. The Spaniards have
added their favourite Carnations grown in pots, but little
else. It seemed to me that the style might well be
copied in England, making the beds much less ; cer-
tainly the little shallow fountains would look lovely
anywhere. We have seen one or two other gardens,
always the sunk beds and tiled or paved paths, and
always Violets used as grass round the roots of any-
thing. Where we are has been an eye-opener to me
about the English abroad and their narrowness in
household management. Our garden was made by an
Englishman, so all our beds are raised, and are washed
away in every storm, and the would-be gravel path is
most of it in the high road below. Your book has been
of the greatest use in our tiny garden. Even though
the conditions are so different, the spirit is the same.'
e My dear young friend a little misses the spirit of

JUNE 355

what I mean when she thinks the system of the garden
she describes can be brought to England. Where there
is frost and damp, such things get soon spoilt and in-
jured, and look mournful and decayed. Broken-up
paving -stones are pretty in a formal garden, and —
planted with Lavender, Pinks, Carnations, Rosemary,
Saxifrages, and Roses — can be made to look lovely at
all seasons. But sunk beds as she describes them,
which are perfect for irrigation in the South, would
never do here. The plants would damp off. Raised
beds, however, are undesirable even in England in light
soils. We can no more imitate what is best in the
South than they can imitate our velvet lawns and our
sweeping Beech trees. Planting the Viola odorata (the
Old English garden Violet) under every shrub or tiny
Gooseberry and Currant bush, in both flower and kitchen
garden, has been a great success with me in Surrey. If
tried with even Czar Violets, which require more care
and cultivation, it would be a failure. The cultivation
of Carnations in pots might be more carried out in Eng-
land—with advantage, I think. And it would be better
if the pots were painted or glazed half-way down, as
done on the Continent, to prevent evaporation. The
single -branching Larkspurs of all colours were grown
in pots at Florence, and looked so well. I am trying
some. They are far prettier than the double annual
Larkspur generally grown in England.

The two most beautiful villas I saw truly carried out,
with their lovely grounds, the half-monkish ideal ex-
pressed by Newman : ' By a garden is meant mystically
a place of spiritual repose, stillness, peace, refreshment,
and delight.' Our gay, modern, brilliant, flowery Eng-
lish parterres and Scotch and Irish gardens express, to
my mind, none of this. Apart from everything else,
their limited size renders this impossible. They tell us

356 MORE POT-POURRI

a garden is the reward of toil; the earth's cry of delight
that winter is over and gone ; the full enjoyment of
plenty and rich colour, requiring constant care ; not a
place of 'spiritual repose, stillness, and delight.'

The more splendid of these two villas was, tradition
says, designed by Michael Angelo, and it is worthy of
his brain and hand. In its large simplicity it reminds
one of his will : ' Lascio 1' anima a Dio e la mia roba ai
piii prossimi parenti.' This villa stands many miles
high on the hillside southwest of Florence, and is
approached by the usual stately Cypress avenue. Its
massive plain front and its open arcade are most im-
pressive. On the right was the solemn shade of the
Ilex grove, and beneath was the boundless view of sun-
lit Florence.

The other villa, most wonderful of all as regards its
surroundings and views, was Villa Gamberaia (which
means, 'Pool of the Crayfish '), four or five miles from
Florence, beyond Settingiano. I suppose everyone who
goes to Florence sees it, or used to do so ; now it is
more difficult. Napoleon III. lived in it at one time. I
wonder if in after-life his thoughts sometimes turned
with sorrowful regrets to the peaceful days passed
there ? Here were Cypresses taller and straighter than
any I had ever seen ; long, green alleys, ending in small
temples; high walls over which Oleanders tossed them-
selves, their branches heavy with the bloom of their
exquisite pink flowers ; and all the long afternoon of
the late June day the nightingales sang. Why, in colder
climes, do they stop singing so much earlier in the year,
and here they sing well into midsummer? With the
exception of these nightingales in favoured woods, the
birds are very silent in Italy in June. But the sounds
are many— frogs, insects, the constant singing of the
grasshoppers. Keats says : ' The poetry of Earth is

JUNE 357

never dead. When all the birds are faint with the hot
sun and hide in cooling trees, a voice will run from
hedge to hedge about the new -mown mead. That is the
grasshopper's.'

For associations with the South, there is nothing in
the way of sounds to equal the sad call of the little
night -owl — or aziola, as the Italians call it. The fol-
lowing colloquial poem of Shelley's, if not a gem
amongst his lyrics, expresses the tender affection we
must all feel for this little bird :

'Do you not hear the aziola cry?
Methinks she must be nigh, '

Said Mary, as we sate

In dusk, ere stars were lit or candles brought ;
And I, who thought
This aziola was some tedious woman,

Ask'd, ' Who is Aziola?' How elate
I felt to know that it was nothing human,

No mockery of myself to fear or hate !
And Mary saw my soul,

And laughed and said, 'Disquiet yourself not;
'Tis nothing but a little, downy owl.'

Sad aziola ! many an eventide

Thy music I had heard

By wood and stream, meadow and mountainside,
And fields and marshes wide, —
Such as nor voice, nor lute, nor wind, nor bird,

The soul ever stirr'd;
Unlike, and far sweeter than them all.
Sad aziola ! from that moment I
Loved thee and thy sad cry.

One of my first inquiries on my arrival in Florence
was about an old villa that in my time belonged to a
rich Russian. They said it was all swept away and the
treasures gone to St. Petersburg. The reason this villa
made so deep an impression on me was that there I saw

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for the first time a picture of ' Paolo and Francesca ' ; it
was by Ary Scheffer. I was so young that it set me
wondering how Dante could call it Hell and yet leave
them together. The same thought has been rendered
finely, I think, by a young friend who signs himself
'M. B.' His sonnet was written on seeing the much
stronger and more beautiful representation of the same
subject by Mr. Watts :

Though borne like withered leaves upon a stream,
Perished and dead, they would not live again,
Nor in the hard world face the wiles of men ;

Their past is but the haunting of a dream.

And yet they would not sleep in Asphodel,
Nor — for without remorse is their regret —
Drink deep of bliss and utterly forget;

Not for all Heaven would they exchange their Hell.

And they give thanks because their punishment

Is sealed and sure, because their doom shall be

To go in anguish through eternity
Together on the never-resting air.

Beyond all happiness is their content

Who know there is no end to their despair.

At the end of June the whole colour of the country
had changed and become much richer from the corn
ripening. This restored to the Olive trees once more
their gray colour in the sunlight, and in evening light
they again looked cool and almost blue against the warm
madder and ochre of the corn. How endless in nature
is the making of colour by contrast !

Custom often has in it more reason than at first
appears. I never could understand why so few people
go to Italy in summer. But the fact is, they hunger for
bright, strong colour — blue skies and yellow sunsets,
purple mountains and brilliant flowers. These they find
in spring and autumn, to their hearts' content ; but
summer in Florence is mellow and veiled, and very ten-

JUNE 359

der in colour, truly represented in Mason's pictures, and
so totally unlike the typical water-colour drawings of
Italy from the brush of Richardson or Aaron Penley,
much the fashion fifty years ago.

At one villa I saw a pond of lovely Burmese goldfish,
quite different from any I had ever before seen alive,
and exactly resembling the fish in Japanese drawings
and Chinese bowls — little, fat bodies, and large, swim-
ming bladders, and long, waving tails which made their
movements very swift and graceful. They were fed
with little bite of wafer, the same as that used in
Catholic churches, and also used all over the Continent
for wrapping up powders so that you should not taste
the medicine. The fish pounced on these delicate mor-
sels with extraordinary rapacity and greed. I have
never dared feed the goldfish in my fountain, as they
remain so much healthier with only the natural food
they are able to procure. Where the fountains are
kept very clean, the best food for them, if these wafers
cannot be procured, is crumbled vermicelli.

June 17th. — My time was half over in Florence
before I went to the picture galleries at all — not because
I did not wish to go, but there was so much else to see
and enjoy and admire. It is almost useless to speak of
the pictures themselves. Those who have seen them
know what they are ; and to those who have not, no
words would convey any idea. It was very interesting
to me to realise how my own taste had altered. The
outside of the Pitti, grand and massive as the building
is, gives me no pleasure. Under the archway, and
beyond the public entrance into the building, there is
a little yard where a wonderful sight can be obtained
of the Arabesque patterns which adorn the outside of
the old Medici passage to the Uffizi. It is worth while
to go through to look at them. Inside the galleries,

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pictures that used to be pointed out to me as the great
gems in my youth seemed now comparatively uninter-
esting. Botticelli, whom I at that time never heard
of, stands indeed a head and shoulders above his con-
temporaries. Two quite little cabinet pictures in one
of the small rooms at the Ufflzi gave me much to think
of. One was the exquisite little 'Judith.' His render-
ing of the subject first gave me a kind of understanding
why the old masters were so fond of the ghastly story
which must have appealed to them from their own wars
and dissensions. I have always hated the usual treat-
ment of this subject — the bleeding corpse on the bed
and the uplifted head in Judith's hand. But here the
beautiful heroine widow, her deed accomplished, her
country saved, trips home again with stately pride
across the open country. Warriors are in the dis-
tance, fields and flowers in front, and her child- like,
innocent face is turned full towards one. In one hand
she holds the emblem of peace, an Olive branch ; in
the other the sword of power. Behind her comes the
maid, with the handsome head of Holof ernes in the
meat-bag on her head. The maid's expression of
mingled awe and admiration is quite as much beyond
the time in variety of expression and powerful story-
telling as is Judith's own, which shows one how she
will shortly say, with a loud voice : ' Praise, praise God,
praise God, I say ; for He hath not taken away His
mercy from the House of Israel, but hath destroyed
our enemies by mine hands this night.'

The other picture, 'Calumny,' is hung quite near.
It is a little larger, and is unique and remarkable in
every way : an allegorical picture full of thought. The
idea was suggested to Botticelli by Lucian's description
of a painting by Apelles. For the benefit of those as
ignorant as I was, I may as well say that Apelles was a

JUNE 361

famous painter at the Court of the first Alexander,
and then of Ptolemy, about 330 B.C.: and that Lucian
was a Greek writer of the time of Marcus Aurelius,
and that his manuscripts were brought from Constanti-
nople to Italy about 1425, and printed for the first
time at Florence in 1496, Botticelli's own date being
1437-1515.

The whole picture is painted with the greatest finish
and delicacy, and with an immense wealth of detail. In
the background are three highly decorated arches, with
a pure, blue sky, tenderly graduated, showing through.
In the middle of the picture is Calumny, hurrying
towards the Judge, and attended by two women, repre-
senting Hypocrisy and Treachery. Calumny drags a
rather feeble young man, without clothes, by the hair of
his head along the ground. He holds his hands up
in an attitude of supplication, and is supposed to
represent Innocence. Envy, a male figure clothed in
shabby garments, stands between this group and the
Judge's throne. Ignorance and Distrust are whisper-
ing into the long donkey's ears of the Judge. On the
left of the picture is the black, draped figure of Re-
morse, who turns and looks at a beautiful naked young
woman representing Truth. Calumny has seized and
is carrying before the Judge Truth's lighted torch. It
is impossible to look at this picture and not have brought
to one's mind the wretched fate of the modern prisoner
on the Devil's Island.

Had nothing been preserved to us of Botticelli's but
these two pictures, I think we should have known that
he was one of the men who were most in advance of
their time, and one of the greatest painters the world has
ever known. To my mind, the Botticellis in our own
National Gallery give no sort of idea of his gifts and
powers as seen at Florence.

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An old friend, to whom I had written of my love of
the early Tuscan painters when I was at Florence as a
girl of twenty, answered me as follows, and I suppose
many would agree with him :

'The modern taste for the very early Florentine
masters must, I think, be an acquired one, and, though
in your own case it may have seemed spontaneous, I
doubt whether any intellectual taste or tendency is
wholly self -formed in the case of a girl of nineteen.
At that impressionable age living in a mental atmos-
phere congenial to it, you with your quick receptive
temperament probably imbibed from those around you,
whose opinions on art were entitled to your respect, and
without any conscious effort or critical process of your
own, that sentiment about the early Florentine masters
to which the writings of Ruskin had already given so
strong an impulse, and which was then the pervading
sentiment of connoisseurs and persons interested in
pictorial art. Perugino is the earliest master in whose
works I can find beauty — a quality essential to my
enjoyment of art as such. The earlier masters, Giotto,
Cimabue, Taddeo Gaddi, Masaccio, Lippo Lippi, etc.,
seem to me only interesting.'

With regard to Botticelli, I feel that he alone perhaps
among the Tuscans strikes the note which Berenson
alludes to in the following passage from his 'Venetian
Painters,' and I like to feel that Berenson's optimism
about modern art and life is true :

'Indeed, not the least attraction of the Venetian
masters is their note of modernity, by which I mean the
feeling they give us that they were on the high road to
the art of to-day. We have seen how, on two separate
occasions, Venetian painters gave an impulse to Span-
iards, who in turn have had an extraordinary influence
on modern painting. It would be easy, too, although it

JUNE 363

is not my purpose, to show how much other schools of
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries — such as the
Flemish, led by Rubens, and the English, led by Rey-
nolds— owed to the Venetians. My endeavour has been
to explain some of the attractions of the school, and
particularly to show its close dependence upon the
thought and feeling of the Renaissance. This is per-
haps its greatest interest, for, being such a complete
expression of the riper spirit of the Renaissance, it helps
us to a larger understanding of a period which has in
itself the fascination of youth, and which is particularly
attractive to us because the spirit that animates us is
singularly like the better spirit of that epoch. ,.We, too,
are possessed of boundless curiosity. We, too, have an
almost intoxicating sense of human capacity. We, too,
believe in a great future for humanity, and nothing has
yet happened to check our delight in discovery or our
faith in life.'

The head of Rembrandt in his youth, painted by him-
self, in the Pitti (not either of those in the Uffizi) is
perhaps the most beautiful of his many self-painted por-
traits. None, certainly, in the Rembrandt Exhibition at
Burlington House this winter came near to it for beauty,
in my humble opinion.

There is also an unusual portrait of Charles I. and
Henrietta Maria, painted together in one frame, divided
only by the twisted column of an Italian window. I
have never before seen a double portrait treated in quite
the same way. It is Van Dyke at his best — so finished,
so refined ! Perhaps he took extra pains, knowing it
was going to the young Queen's Medicean relations, in
the then far-away beautiful Florence.

I find I am doing exactly what I meant not to do, and
must stop noticing pictures, as any guidebook describes
all the best pictures quite enough.

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I found a treasure in one of the smaller rooms at the
Pitti which Mr. Hare, at any rate, does not mention.
It was the most remarkable piece of furniture, from some
points of view, I think I ever saw in my life, though
perhaps many would call it unartistic. Historically, it
is interesting from the religious attitude it represents.
It was a large cabinet on a raised stand. It belonged to
Cardinal Leopoldo dei Medici, and was placed in his
dressing-room. One side of it, when the doors were
opened, acted as an altar, with a delicately-carved cru-
cifix in a recess, before which the Cardinal could say
mass. On the other side the doors opened on to an
elaborate toilet table of a most luxurious kind, with
looking-glasses and every other appliance. The whole
piece of furniture contained a number of small drawers,
many of them secret. The black wood of which it was
made was highly polished and a beautiful specimen of
cabinet work. The whole was richly inlaid, outside and
in, with various marbles, stones, and alabasters of dif-
ferent colours and sizes. The veinings and colourings
of these were used and adapted as the landscape back-
grounds of wonderfully delicate little oil paintings, rep-
resenting almost the whole of the Bible stories, both Old
and New Testament. It requires hours to see this cabi-
net properly, and among all the treasures in this wonder
palace it is, perhaps, the object that gives one the
greatest idea of the wealth and luxury of that God-and-
mammon period that can possibly be seen. It is sup-
posed to have been made in Germany and painted by
Breughel. Some paintings on wood, using the graining
of the wood as suggestive of the landscapes, are the
only attempts I have seen in modern art to carry out this
idea of Breughel's paintings on stones. The natural
markings of the wood give great variety to the compo-
sition of the landscape. This is very much increased

JUNE 365

by the varied materials used for the decoration of this
marvellous cabinet.

Of course I re-read 'Romola'; everyone does and
ought, as being in the atmosphere of Florence extraor-
dinarily increases the enjoyment of what is in many
ways a very wonderful book, full of fine things and pas-
sionately sympathetic with women's trials.

In a very old notebook of mine, I find the following
sentence. I have no idea by whom it was written ; but
it so exactly describes why certain books, and indeed
certain people, appeal to me when others that are in
many respects better leave me cold and indifferent, that
I repeat it now in my old age, agreeing with it as I did
at twenty :

'We readily overlook all that is tasteless and igno-
rant for the sake of that power which, in reminding us
of the misery of the world, translates it into something
softening, elevating, uniting. We should fully allow
that some immortal work, and a great deal of the most
popular work, is almost entirely without the feeling.
There is scarcely a touch of it in Homer; there is not a
touch of it in many a novel much sought for at the
libraries. But to us it appears one of the greatest gifts
of the writer of fiction. It is not that we desire to be
always contemplating the misery of the world ; when
we take up a novel we often desire to forget it. But an
author who does not know it cannot make us forget it;
and a writer who is to deliver us from its oppressive
forms must be able to translate the manifold troubles
of life, with all their bewildering entanglement, their
distracting pettiness, into something that releases such
tears as the foreign slaves shed on Hector's bier.
*' Their woes their own, a hero's death the plea." '

No modern novelist that I know does this better than
George Eliot.

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In Florence, with the sky and the sunshine and the
whole mind in a receptive condition, no effort was nec-
essary fully to appreciate 'Romola.' What a difference
that does make ! Reading some books at unfavourable
times is as great an injustice towards the author as look-
ing at pictures, no matter how beautiful, in the dark.

June 19th. — Sad news has come from England to-day
of the death of Sir Edward Burne- Jones. What a loss!

The following very simple little poem by Byron — not
much known, I think — is not modern in feeling, but fits
singularly, for those who believe in spirit -land, the
death of a man like Burne -Jones :

Bright be the place of thy soul!

No lovelier spirit than thine
E'er burst from its mortal control

In the orbs of the blessed to shine.

On earth thou wert all but divine,

As thy soul shall immortally be ;
And our sorrow shall cease to repine

When we know that thy God is with thee.

Light be the turf of thy tomb!

May its verdure like emeralds be !
There should not be the shadow of gloom

In aught that reminds us of thee.

Young flowers and an evergreen tree
May spring from the spot of thy rest ;

But no Cypress nor Yew let us see,

For why should we mourn for the blest?

Those who do not believe in spirit -land in any think-
able form— and I fancy they are many more than is
generally supposed— when brought face to face with
death, mourn not for the peace and rest of those that
are gone, but for themselves — their own personal grief
and loss and misery — and feel a kind of humiliation that

JUNE 367

what they themselves prized most, or the person who
loved them most, is gone from them. Such grief, like
all our other selfishness, should be fought and controlled
as much as we have strength for. The old notion of
those who prayed against sudden death was of a death
unprepared, unsanctified by the Church, that did not
give the same chance of eternal happiness to some one
they loved which was freely granted to the majority.
This indeed was a thought only to find relief in wailing
and gnashing of teeth. Now we say : 'What was best
for them was worst for us, but what does that matter ?'

In speaking of Burne- Jones' work many years ago,
Mr. Ruskin said : ' His work is simply the only art-
work at present produced in England which will be
received by the future as classic. I know that these will
be immortal, as the best things the mid -nineteenth cen-
tury in England can produce, in such true relations as it
had through all confusion retained with the paternal
and everlasting art of the world.' And do we not all
feel this is true?

June 34th.— This is the great Florentine 'Festa,' of
which I had often heard and never seen. We were too
idle to go down to the ceremonies at the cathedral in the
morning, but in the afternoon there were vespers at the
baptistery, and the sight was most characteristic and
curious. Every child that is born in Florence is still
baptised there, and the water is still salted as of old.
There were men, women, and children crowding through
— both of the large doors being opened wide to the
sunny piazza. These openings were veiled during the
service by a long, black, thin curtain. In the middle,
raised on an altar and again raised on steps, was the
beautiful jewelled Benvenuto Cellini John the Baptist
shrine. The people went up and touched it, and mothers,
after touching the shrine, then touched the babies in their

368 MORE POT-POURRI

arms, who held up their tiny hands to receive the touch,
and afterwards reverently kissed their own fingers.

Strong peasant men were there, young and old. It
cannot be one of the least of the mysterious Florentine
bonds, this baptistery which brings back to the inhabi-
tants the recollection of every child that is born to them,
more especially as the infant mortality must be pro-
digious. A handsome mother and daughter knelt just
before me on the marble floor, types of to-day. The
mother, old and tired and hot, mumbled prayers, but not
with devotion. The cold hand of Time had laid hold
on her. If the old are religious it is mentally, not
passionately, and it takes the form of 'calm repose and
peace divine.' The daughter, handsome though not very
•young, with coal-black hair, said her prayers with closed
eyelids and a passionate pathos in her face, softening
for a time her somewhat masculine features — a perfect
example of life's disappointments, not yet utterly with-
out hope.

Passing out into the glorious evening sunshine, we
went inside the. large, bare Duomo, beautiful to me from
its size, its majesty, its cool shades, illuminated by the
pouring in of the bright summer western sun, which
formed rays of light across the darkness. A full choral
vesper was not yet quite ended, and the boys threw back
their heads and flung out their high notes, echoing into
the dome. It was not very reverent or beautiful, but it
sounded well, as it mounted, in wave upon wave of sound,
into the echoing cavities of the great vault. Many
people think the inside of the Duomo ugly, and of course
one can see how it was the origin of much ugliness that
came afterwards ; but it has a grand beauty of its own,
and the jewelled glass is the exact sort of old glass I
admire — most vague in design, but strong in colour, and
glowing with a richness beyond the finest enamel.

JUNE 369

Later in the evening we went on to a balcony on the
Lung' Arno, to see the fireworks let off from the opposite
hill of San Miniato. I had not seen good fireworks for
many years. They may be as good at the Crystal Pal-
ace, and no doubt are, but never can the whole scene be
anything like as lovely as those fireworks on this night
of San Giovanni, with the background of the San Mini-
ato hill, and the river in front a mirror of reflections.
Every street poured its crowd in all directions on to the
Lung' Arno. We had excellent places, and my com-
panion, in a burst of enthusiasm, seized my arm and
said : ' I don't care, it is simply the most beautiful thing
in art or nature I have ever seen.' High over all hung
the young moon, in the clear lapis lazuli sky. The crowd
poured along in a ceaseless stream, but it was impossible
to imagine anj'thing more quiet and orderly. From the
absence of strangers, the streets were so empty in the
daytime one wondered where the people could possibly
all come from now.

June 26th. — I was faithful to my tastes, and though I
had little time I went to the Botanical Garden in the
town. It had nothing in it very remarkable ; all the
greenhouse plants were out in the open, and many of
our northern plants were growing somewhat shabbily in
pots as botanical curiosities, in the way we grow south-
ern things at home. The beautiful Catalpa syringcefolia
was in full flower here, and in all other good Florentine
gardens. The same with Trachelospermum jasminoides,
which hung over all the walls in the greatest profusion,
scenting the air for yards round. I am sure this plant
is generally too much coddled at home, and would do
better if sunk out during the summer and well watered;
it is a greenhouse plant well worth growing. Asclepias
incarnata and Asclepias tuberosa were very sweet ; both
these and Solatium glaucum are quite worthy of a place

370 MORE POT-POURRI

in a fair -sized greenhouse. Rupelia juncea, from Mexico,
struck me as a pretty greenhouse plant, with red flowers
and weedy growth. Iris pseudacorus was growing in a
huge sunk pot, half earth, half water.

There was a large collection of Hydrangeas — plants
so easy to increase that I think our greenhouses ought
to contain greater varieties. These four struck me as
good : Hydrangea quercifolia, H. macrocephala, H. hor-
tensis, and H. chinensis.

Variegated Maple is grown a good deal at Florence,
and, when skilfully used and much pruned, it can be
made a considerable feature in any large garden— mixed
with dark evergreens, such as Hollies, Privets, Irish
Yews, etc., as it has almost the whiteness of flowers at a
distance. Cassia australis struck me as being a hand-
some greenhouse evergreen.

The garden was full of sunk tubs for watering, with
pieces of stone and small plants round the edge. Con-
volvulus mauritanicus is a plant to grow at home in con-
siderable abundance ; it comes easily from seed, and was
lovely in this garden in half shade under shrubs. Mine
has lived out now three winters, its roots protected by a
small shrub. It is also very pretty grown in baskets in
the greenhouse.

I was disappointed at seeing no Lilies growing in
gardens in Florence, though plenty of the Lilium can-
didum were sold in the market. How excellent is Mr.
Stephen Phillips' line on a Lily garden : 'A tragic odour
like emotion rose.' That is a complete description in
words of the scent of some flowers, such as I had long
sought for, but, I think, never found before.

Apparently nothing in my first book really offended
the reviewers, and perhaps even the public, so much as
my non- appreciation of Virginia Creeper and Ampelopsis
Veitchii. The remarks of one critic are typical of many

JUNE 37i

others : 'Very gently and respectfully we would say
"Avoid the dictatorial attitude," and we would point our
meaning by an ancient horticultural saying of the Mid-
lands : ' ' Different people have different opinions — some
like apples, and some like inions." Mrs. Earle, it seems
to us, might well consider that occasionally others may,
without being guilty of sin against art, admire that
which revolts her sense of the beautiful. Frankly, her
denunciation of Ampelopsis Veitchii hurt our feelings.
But the dictatorial tone, the inability to recognise two
sides to a question, is characteristic of even the greatest
gardeners.'

What I did not sufficiently explain is that it is not a
plant that I condemn in itself, but what I do condemn is
the placing of it in wrong situations, or allowing it to
destroy architectural beauty. I have, under my own bed-
room window, an ugly piece of slate roofing which this
autumn was covered with a mixture of Virginia Creeper
and Ampelopsis — the latter still green, the former one
mass of ruby and gold. Nothing could be more beauti-
ful. But then it is growing where hardly anything else
would grow, which is different to sacrificing a good south
or west wall for this one week of beauty in the year.

My objection to Ampelopsis Veitchii was certainly in-
creased while in Florence, as it grew with the greatest
profusion in every direction, and as a picturesque object
(say, for sketching) the beautiful old Porta Romana was
entirely destroyed and put out of tone, both with sky
and earth, by being almost entirely covered with this
terrible brilliantly green Japanese Ivy.

June 27th. — Just before I left I went to see the Ric-
cardi Palace, in the Via Cavour. The chapel I thought,
as I suppose everyone does, one of the most interesting
gems in Florence ; it is so wonderfully fresh in colour.
The frescoes are by Benozzo Gozzoli. We are told his

372 MORE POT-POURRI

mind was less exalted than Fra Angelico's. That may
easily be. His pictures are quite mundane, but the cos-
tumes and the landscape backgrounds are thoroughly
interesting, and the luxurious grandeur in these wonder-
fully preserved frescoes give one a thrilling idea of the
times. I was especially interested in the garden back-
grounds. The Roses were quite cultivated Roses and
very large. The Cypresses were faithfully painted as I
have seen nowhere else; some were quite natural, others
again were cut in rounds and shapes, probably the ear-
liest representation of topiary work in the world. The
flower beds were cut out in the grass, with hedges such
as one sees to-day round any modern hotel. The extra-
ordinary preservation of the frescoes is owing to their
having been in the dark. Now the owners have made a
large window, and a Philistine proprietor years ago cut
a door through the principal fresco. The portraits of
the Medicis on horseback, and the splendid clothes,
figure, and horse of the eastern Emperor, impressed
me with the feeling it was quite the finest thing of the
kind I had seen.

I suppose everyone climbs up to the top of the
old Palazzo Vecchio and sees that old Medicean room,
once the library, where the huge white doors of the
book -cases are panelled with the most beautiful old
maps. If I remember rightly, America is represented
by the island of Cuba ! The colour of them is splen-
did. Even modern maps would make a beautiful decora-
tion for a white room, I think. German modern maps
are exceedingly well coloured, and some representing
seas and currents have a mystery and poetry quite
their own.

The comparatively new public road on the San
Miniato hill, which Mr. Hare calls 'an enchanting drive,'
struck me as extremely well done, very well planted, and

JUNE 373

all the plants well blocked together. In a few more
years, when it has lost its 'new' look, it will be very
beautiful, even from a gardener's point of view. The
variety of Oleanders — from snow-white to darkest red —
were the best I have ever seen.

The interior of San Miniato is one of the most cu-
rious, old, and impressive churches in all Florence; but
the strange burial-ground, dug apparently into the rock,
is to my mind pathetically ugly. The utter bad taste of
it is not on so large a scale as the famous cemetery at
Genoa, which, to the very utmost, carries out Mr. Rus-
kin's words on modern Italian sculpture : ' Trying to be
grand by bigness and pathetic by expense.'

Who that has ever been there does not share that
pining for the beauty and sunshine of the South ? It is
common to so many natures, and almost universally ex-
pressed by the poets. The return need of the South for
the strengthening influence of the North I have rarely
read in prose or poetry. Mrs. Browning seems to have
realised that there is such a need :

'Now give us lands where the Olives grow,'

Cried the North to the South,
'Where the sun with a golden mouth can blow
Blue bubbles of grapes down a vineyard-row!'

Cried the North to the South.

'Now give us men from the sunless plain,'

Cried the South to the North,
'By need of work in the snow and the rain
Made strong, and brave by familiar pain.''

Cried the South to the North.

'Give lucider hills and intenser seas,'

Cried the North to the South,
'Since ever by symbols and bright degrees
Art, child-like, climbs to the dear Lord's knees,'

Said the North to the South.

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'Give strenuous souls for belief and prayer, '

Said the South to the North,
'That stand in the dark on the lowest stair,
While affirming of God, "He is certainly there," '

Said the South to the North.

'Yet oh! for the skies that are softer and higher,'

Sighed the North to the South;
'For the flowers that blaze, and the trees that aspire,
And the insects made of a song or a fire, '

Sighed the North to the South.

'And oh! for a seer to discover the same,'

Sighed the South to the North;

'For a Poet's tongue of baptismal flame,

To call the tree or flower by its name,'

Sighed the South to the North.

JULY

A night journey — Dawn in the train — Passing Chambe'ri — A water-
cure near Geneva— Amiel and his 'Journal Intime' — The New
Museum at Geneva — M. Correvon's garden — An afternoon at
B<ile — Boecklin ' again — Cronberg and the ' Palmengarten' —
Planting shrubs to secure an especial effect — The cultivation of
Alpine Strawberries— Receipts.

July 1st. — I left Florence on one of the last days of
June, with oh ! such a sad heart and a feeling I should
never see it again. I am so conscious, as I said before,
of the wisdom of spending the rest of my life at home
and foregoing the pleasures of travel, as with my nature
long absences unfortunately diminish the pleasure and
interest I take in my own concerns, and regret at what I
leave behind comes between me and my happiness when
I am away. The weather had been wet, and directly the
sun was obscured the temperature was, if anything,
rather too cool. I do love a night railway journey, be-
cause of the chance it gives one of seeing that most
wondrously lovely effect of nature which we so seldom
do see — this growth of the famous 'more light,' Goethe's
last words — the triumphal march of the coming on of
day. I determined to enjoy it in spite of the presence
of seven Italians, one more "than the carriage was in-
tended to hold, who got in at Genoa at four o'clock in
the morning and never ceased talking amongst them-
selves.

It is not only the beauty of the growing light, but
the mysterious human awakening, the early smoke that
coils from some cottage chimney, the opening window,

(375)

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the man who goes out to his work along the road — every
little incident seems to be full both of the poetry and
pathos of life. In a tiny volume lately published, of
remarkable verse by A. E., 'Earth Breath and other
Poems,' the poem called ' Morning ' expresses in part
my feeling :

We had the sense of twilight round us;

The orange dawn lights fluttered by;
And thrilling through the spell that bound us

We heard the world's awakening cry.

We felt the dim appeal of sorrow

Boiled outward from its quiet breath,

To waken to the burdened morrow,
The toil for life, the tears for death.

And out of all old pain and longing
The truer love woke with the light.

We saw the evil shadows thronging,
And went as warriors to the fight.

The last line is to me an especially true note. Indif-
ference, blindness, despondency, all these I hate ; but
to meet life with courage, both for oneself and others,
that must be the real aim. But courage is rather
strength than happiness.

Professor Blackie said somewhere, ' There is nothing
fills me with more sorrow occasionally than to see how
foolishly some people throw away their lives. It is a
noble thing to live ; at least, a splendid chance of play-
ing a significant game — a game which we may never
have the chance to play again, and which is surely
worth while to try to play skilfully ; to bestow at least
as much pains upon it as many a one does on billiards
or lawn tennis. But these pains are certainly not
always given, and so the game of life is lost, and the
grand chance of forming a manly character is gone, for
no man can play a game well who leaves his moves to

JULY 377

chance, and so, instead of fruitful victories, brilliant
blunders are all the upshot of what many a record of
distinguished lives has to present.' All this from a
night journey. It was broad daylight as we came
down the beautiful flowery slopes of the Cenis in a
luxurious French corridor carriage, so superior in every
way to the Italian one we had just left.

The English used to be accused of being the great
eaters of Europe when I was young. I do not think
that is the case now. In our carriage was a middle-
aged couple — I should imagine, brother and sister —
and evidently, as is so often the case with other couples,
the gray mare was the better horse. She travelled with
curious deliberation ; first she wrapped up both the
hats in beautiful bright Italian silk handkerchiefs, to
preserve them from dust. Her black hair, I suppose
she thought, could be cleaned without expense. She
frizzled up her curls and wiped her dark, fat, ugly face.
She then produced a huge powder-puff, and powdered
her face well all over. The man bore all this patiently ;
he was thin and bald, and much more refined -looking
than she was. He placed a black silk cap on his head.
Then she opened a large dog -basket filled with a most
dainty luncheon. Sandwiches, folded up in a beauti-
fully clean, damp napkin, began the meal. Then were
eaten large slices of meat and bread, mugs full of rich
milk, cheese (of which she must have eaten eight or ten
ounces), and all this with a. resigned calm, as if she
were performing a sacred duty which she owed, not to
herself, but to society. The meal wound up with beauti-
ful ripe Apricots — grown, I am sure, on their own
Lombardy estate — and a home-made plum cake, like an
English one. The remains, which were carefully packed
up, would have fed a carriageful, and, I confess, made
me feel quite greedy, my humble bread and cherries

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having nearly come to an end. When they had eaten
their fill, superior peppermint lozenges were produced
by the lady and shared by her companion ; not one,
but six or seven were slowly consumed in the same
resigned, sad way. This was to assist digestion, I pre-
sume. Calm sleep then supervened to both, and their
labours were over. In the seat opposite me was a man
in the dress of an ecclesiastic, with a face that might
have belonged to Rousseau's famous Savoyard vicar — a
calm, intellectual face, that would have looked well
carved in the mellow, amber -coloured marble of a
Florentine tomb. My travelling companions — exter-
nally, at any rate — were strong contrasts !

I never can pass through this valley of Chamber! ,
with its beautiful mountains all around, without a
strange thrill at the thought that here Rousseau lived
and botanised for so many happy years in his youth, or
calmly worked in the garden of his early love, Mme.
de Warens. Her house is still shown. Some years ago
I spent a day in Chamberi, but only saw this house from
the top of the castle tower, my companions preferring
other sights to the romantic pilgrimage I wished to
make to the abode where lived those two, who little
dreamt they were weaving one of the strangest romances
that was ever publicly confessed.

I saw at that time in the museum a curious example
of how, in certain stages of civilisation, the same cus-
toms prevail. They have there a large collection of
curiosities taken from the remains of Lake villages ;
amongst other things, beautiful pins and brooches, like
those found in Scotland and Ireland. My attention was
attracted to a half moon -shaped piece of wood scooped
out and delicately carved and ornamented. I asked the
custodian what it was. He pointed to a small photo-
graph placed beside it, which represented a Japanese

JULY 379

woman lying on the floor with a piece of similar wood
under her little head. Perhaps without this photograph
from the far east the use of this primitive pillow from
the Lake villages might have remained an unexplained
curiosity.

I spent a few days in the neighbourhood of Geneva,
to see some friends in one of the water-cure establish-
ments so common now on the Continent — part hotel,
part cure — very different from those primitive water-
cures started in the early half of this century by
Preissnitz, at Graafenberg. I picked up on an old
bookstall, some years ago, a curious little pamphlet by
Bulwer Lytton, called 'Confessions of a Water Patient.'
He described how he had found his faith in the system
strengthen, but he shrank from the terrors of a long
journey to Silesia, 'the rugged region in which the
probable lodging was a labourer's cottage, where the
sulky hypochondriac would murmur and growl over a
public table spread with no tempting condiments.' It is
the modern luxury of hotel life which, I think, now
militates so much against all these cures. The patients
have two large hotel dinners of doubtfully wholesome
food, and lie about all day on luxurious chairs. This is
very different from the return to primitive life, an
essential part of the cure in the old system, and which
in modern days has been better practised by 1'Abbe
Kneipp than by any other that I have heard of. Now
luxury and self-indulgence hold the poor modern,
civilised patients in their grip wherever they go, and
often they return no better than they went, in spite of
douches and baths innumerable.

I must confess I found it rather trying coming from
Florence to a hydropathic establishment in Switzerland.
Illnesses, and especially what, for want of a better name,
are called nerve -illnesses, are from their very obscurity

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quite extraordinarily depressing, and bring prominently
forward the eternal injustice of nature. Looking out of
my window at the gravelled yard and the heavy grove of
trees gave me the feeling that I might be in a private
lunatic asylum, or even in a prison, though I have never
lived in either. The thought may have been specially
presented to my mind from the remarkable poem which
appeared last year, 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol,' for,
looking up out of my window, I too could see over the
opposite roof that little square of blue which suggested
these two verses :

I never saw a man who looked

With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue

Which prisoners call the sky,
And at every wandering cloud that trailed

Its ravelled fleeces by.

He did not wring his hands, as do

Those witless men who dare
To try to rear the changeling Hope

In the cave of Black Despair :
He only looked upon the sun,

And drank the morning air.

Looking down in the early morning, I saw the
patients, in various quaint costumes, hurrying to the
morning douches. One, a middle-aged man, could not
walk unless he pushed a large brown basket-work per-
ambulator before him. He did not lean on it, and was
very cheerful, but apparently it steadied his nerves, and
with it his legs obeyed his wishes and he walked
perfectly. Many people were, of course, quite well —
merely accompanying the invalids. All these bathing-
places strike me as being deadly dull and tiresome for
those who are well, but foreigners seem to be much
more patient about spending their holidays in health

JULY 381

resorts than we are, for they look upon absolute idleness
as the correct thing, and are content to spend their
waking hours in talking. This can be noticed any day
at seaside places in France. To my mind, the perfect
holiday for people in health is change of scene and
occupation and interest ; certainly not what is called
'rest/ which means sitting out all day long, doing abso-
lutely nothing but chattering to people you have never
seen before and will never see again. Without the
object of being a companion to those we love, I can
imagine no greater trial.

When I could stand the feeling of being surrounded
by invalids no longer, I used to get outside the place
and walk by the deep -cut cliffs, rather than banks, of
the roaring, rushing river. The land was losing all its
wildness, and was being built over; but nothing can
ever alter those steep -cut sides, which in old days might
have been the scene of the following poem :

By the hoof of the wild goat uptossed
From the cliff where she lay in the sun

Fell the stone

To the tarn where the daylight is lost —
So she fell from the light of the sun,

And alone.

Now the fall was ordained from the first
With the goat and the cliff and the tarn,

But the stone

Knows only her life is accursed
As she sinks in the depths of the tarn,

And alone.

Oh ! Thou who hast builded the world,
Oh ! Thou who hast lighted the sun,
Oh ! Thou who hast darkened the tarn,

Judge Thou

The sin of the stone that was hurled
By the goat from the light of the sun
As she sinks in the mire of the tarn
Even now — even now — even now!

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Beautiful, bright Geneva struck me as hard and ugly,
after the mellow softness of Florence. I had hoped to
have seen many interesting places in the neighbourhood,
the homes of those who are familiar to us as our own
relatives. Ferney I have never seen, nor Coppet, nor
the house on the south side of the lake where Byron
lived, close to the one taken by the Shelleys and Clair
that memorable summer after Byron's separation from
his wife and before the birth of Allegra. Is it not
all told in one of the best, most complete, and most
interesting biographies of our day, Dowden's 'Life of
Shelley ' ? George Eliot spent a happy time at Geneva as
a girl, and I would gladly have seen 18 Rue des
Chamoines, where she lived and rested and enjoyed her-
self with kind friends. And last of all, there is the quiet
corner where Amiel worked and lived and wrote. Some
time after his death a very interesting review (by Lucas
Malet) of Mrs. Humphry Ward's translation of Amiel's
'Journal Intime ' appeared in the ' Fortnightly Review '
for Mayor June, 1896. She alludes several times to the
short biography of Professor Amiel by Mile. Berthe
Vadier, which was published in Paris, and thus describes
the place where he lived : ' His windows overlooked a
well -filled flower garden ; the walls of it were draped
with Ivy and Virginia Creeper, above which rises the
ancient college of Calvin, while through a side opening
he could see the trees on the Promenade Saint -Antoine,
and the Russian church, its gilded cupolas backed by the
purple hillside of the Grand Saleve.' AmieFs biographer
says : ' II etait toujours beau.' Lucas Malet adds : ' The
dome of his head is very fine, reminding one in height
and purity of curve of the head of Shakespeare, or of
the modern writer who in looks so curiously resembles
him — Dante Rossetti. But with the brow all likeness to
the great or lesser poet ceases : the eyes and lower part

JULY 383

of the face lacking the glorious audacity and robustness
of the first — we accept the witness of the Stratford bust
and picture, rather than that of the fancy portrait in
Westminster Abbey — equally with the sensuous heavi-
ness that so mars the beauty of the second. For Amiel's
face and head belong to a type not infrequent in French
Switzerland, combining a certain largeness of ground
plan with an almost pinched delicacy of detail. Refine-
ment rather than strength is its characteristic : a head
in porcelain rather than a head in granite.' I copy this
excellent description, as it exactly fits a large number of
student men of our own day. Lucas Malet goes on to
say : 'And truly — though perhaps at the risk of seeming
a little fantastic — we may say that in Amiel's face there
is more than a hint of that singular temper, the pre-
dominance of which in his printed utterances, whether
in prose or verse, prevents their rising into the first rank
of excellence. Both are a trifle artificial ; marked by
something of over -civilisation and over -intellectuality.
He wants body, so to speak. He is utterly deficient in
what Mr. Henry James has so delightfully called "the
saving grace of coarseness." In his case there is too
complete a severing of those cords which bind us to the
lower creation. Not only ape and tiger, but song-bird
and sea-wind, have died in him, as they must always run
the chance of dying in highly educated persons — of
dying so effectually indeed that such persons forget the
very alphabet of that mysterious, primitive language to
speak in which is not only the instinct of external
nature, but the highest achievement of art.' Do we not
all know people whom this description fits as admirably
and completely as it doubtless did the Geneva professor,
though they may but partly share the intellectual gifts
which made his journals so interesting a portrait, not
only of himself, but of the type of human being whom he

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represents — always aspiring and never satisfied, always
working and producing comparatively little result ?

During my stay I was not able to see any of these
houses, as I had wished, and only once did I stand in
the town on the ever wonderful .bridge where the Rhone,
as blue as melted sapphires, tears through the arches.
In spite of endless scientific investigations, no explana-
tion has ever been arrived at to account for the wonder-
ful colour of the Rhone water. A few miles below the
town, as we all know, the Arve rushes down from the
valley of Chamounix, muddy in tone and charged with
solid matter, and it colours for miles the blue waters of
the Rhone. At length the Arve gains the mastery, and
the Rhone, once polluted, does not recover its purity
before reaching the sea. So remarkable a freak of
nature, however often one has heard of it, strikes one
afresh with its obvious allegory.

Instead of all the things I wished to see in Geneva,
the one and only thing I did see was the new museum
with its newly planted grounds, a short drive from the
town, and called (goodness knows why) Ariana. The
building is commodious and light, and well suited for its
object. It is a pleasure to visit a museum with all the
windows wide open ; they are generally such airless,
stuffy places. But one cannot help being severe on
modern buildings on one's return from Italy. Local
museums always have an interest, and one generally
finds something one could have seen nowhere else. In
this case it was a most instructive and comprehensive
collection of old china, very well arranged, named, and
dated. Several specimens and manufactories were quite
new to me — which is not astonishing, as I know so
little about china. A tea service with butterflies and
beetles on a white ground, catalogued 'Nyon, 1780 to
1800, ' struck me as exceedingly pretty. Also some

JULY 385

Charlottenburg of 1790 was rough in shape, but beauti-
fully painted, clear and clean. The only really ugly
china was that of about the middle of this century.

There were some curious old pictures, interesting
rather chronologically and historically than from any
artistic reason. A picture of the ' Roi de Rome ' at about
twelve years old, stated to be by Gerard, was curious,
and if authentic would be a joy to a Napoleonic collector.
Otto Marcellis and Auger Meyer, two insect and leaf
painters of the end of the last century, interested me,
as their oil-paintings resembled a curious water-colour I
have, on a black ground, done by the well-known flower
painter, Mme. Mariani.

I spent two charming afternoons with the famous
Alpine gardener, Monsieur H. Correvon. Though at
this time of year his garden near Geneva was almost a
dry desert, yet it was full of interest to the true gar-
dener. M. Correvon said that gardening, as we
understand it, had made but small way on the continent
of Europe, and that almost all of his clients were
English. Such observations as I have been able to
make quite confirm this assertion. A talk with him is
alone well worth any trouble, and no garden-lover
should fail to visit a man who has done so much to keep
together and cultivate the mountain flora of Europe. I
still hope I may go some spring on purpose to see his
Alpine garden, which is high up on the edge of the
snows of the great St. Bernard, a huge rockery cul-
tivated under natural conditions. I cannot imagine
anything more interesting to plant -lovers. M. Correvon
is the author of many charming little books on Alpine
and herbaceous flowers — 'Fleurs Colorizes de Poche
dans les Montagues de la Suisse,' 'Les Orchidees
Rustiques' (very enlightening to the ignorant on the
numbers of these plants) , and ' Le Jardin de 1'Her-

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boriste/ carrying on to our day the theory of the health-
giving virtues of medicinal plants, and often quoting
PAbbe Kneipp. M. Correvou is a poet, too, and can
express as well as feel, which is not given to all of us.
This is what he says on Linnaaus' humble flower :

Sur les flanes de nos monts il est une fleurette

Au suave parfum
Qui fuit 1' eclat du jour, derobant sa elochette

Aux yeux de Fimportun.

Sa patrie est au loin, sous un ciel plus severe,

Pres des glaces du Nord,
Et nos torrents ont vu la charmante 6trangere

Croitre aussi sur leur bord.

Ses .iolis rameaux verts s'etalent sur la mousse

De nos vallons alpins,
Formant, pros des vieux trones sous lesquels elle pousse,

Le plus beau des jardins.

11 semble qu'un reflet d'aurore boreale,

A survivre obstinfi,
S'attarde et se melange & la teinte d'opale

De la fleur de Linn6.

I have tried in many places for years to grow this
plant ; it does not die exactly, but it pines and looks
sad, and has never once flowered with me.

In some gardens round Geneva I saw several fine
specimens of Hemerocallis fulva. The kind sold by
nurserymen generally is the one figured in the ' English
Flower Garden,' and slightly double. This probably
makes them rather shy flowerers, and in England they
are usually seen in mixed flower borders. The flowers
of those I saw in Switzerland were quite single, proba-
bly a strong -growing type. They were planted in
small, rather sunk beds in gravel or grass, in quite full
sun, and copiously watered. They were one mass of

JULY 387

flower in July, and really most effective, handsome
plants — quite as effective as the Cape Agapanthus, so
much commoner with us. They would look showy on
lawns, and would, I think, do well in tubs, if they got
sun and water enough.

The lovely yellow Day Lily, which flowers earlier, has
done well with me in full sun, never moved at all, but
mulched and watered in dry weather at the flowering
time.

There are several so-called new varieties of Hemero-
callis, and all seem worth growing when they can be
made really to succeed ; but, though apparently coarse-
growing plants, they must be fed, and in a shrubbery in
this soil they would hardly make healthy leaves.

The shrubberies round about the villas in the
neighbourhood of Geneva were quite as badly pruned —
often all on one side, and as much choked up — as ours
in England, or more so. All that the inhabitants seem
to care for is what makes dense shade, which, of course,
they need more than we do. A large Privet, called
Ligustrum sinense, was flowering very well, and is
effective and worth growing in villa gardens, in spite of
its rather disagreeable smell. It is a good flowerer in
July, a rare quality among shrubs.

July 8th. — I carried out my wish and remained a night
at Bale, resisting the greater convenience of the station
hotel for the old, famous, and handsomely rebuilt post-
house of ' The Three Kings,' with its balconies over the
rushing, splendid Rhine. To the ignorant this river
looks as if its water-power were stupendous ; as a fact,
it cannot even be used to make the electric light for the
town, the level of the river varies so immensely.

Time was short and the weather wet, so I only saw
the museum or picture gallery, which was what I had
come to see. Bale to me meant two things — Erasmus

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and Boecklin. It was at Bale that Erasmus lived and
died. Froude's lectures on ' The Life and Letters of
Erasmus ' had so recently brought that memorable time
vividly before me ; and they enable us to look ' through
the eyes of Erasmus at all events as they rose, with the
future course of things concealed from him. This is
the way to understand history. We know what hap-
pened, and we judge the actors on the stage by the light
of it. They did not know.7 Holbein's portrait of
Erasmus is intensely interesting, and much more beauti-
ful than the one at Hampton Court, by the same painter,
of this thin -lipped, intellectual, sensitive ' Trimmer ' of
the Middle Ages. Froude says : ' In early life death
had seemed an ugly object to Erasmus. When his time
came, he received it with tranquility. He died quietly
at Bale on July 12, 1536, and was buried in state in the
cathedral.' The last words of Froude's last lecture
are : 'I have endeavoured to put before you the char-
acter and thoughts of an extraordinary man at the most
exciting period of modern history. It is a period of
which the story is still disfigured by passion and preju-
dice. I believe you will best see what it really was if
you will look at it through the eyes of Erasmus.' It is
not always so easy to see through the eyes of wisdom,
especially for those who are passionate and prejudiced.

With regard to the typical pictures of Boecklin
bought by his native town, I must confess my first
impression was one of disappointment, in spite of their
great power. His large figure -pictures of mermaids
and mermen, fighting centaurs, etc., though in a way
striking and remarkable, are to me positively ugly, both
in colour and form, their only redeeming point being
the beautiful cloud effects. In skies he seems never to
fail. But there is one small picture of exquisite beauty,
which reaches the height of the Todten-Insel, called

JULY 389

' The Sacred Grove' — a deep, dark Ilex wood, just like
those I had lately been seeing near Florence. On the
right a sunlit plain or valley was only indicated, and the
light seemed to beat upwards, as in nature. Along the
dark wood came a white -robed procession of worship-
pers. On the left was a tiny stone altar, on which burnt
the sacred fire, the smoke rising straight up into the
absolutely still evening air. It was a beautiful picture
— a thorough example of Mr. Ruskin's description, in
one of his Oxford lectures, of landscape painting. He
says : ' Landscape painting is the thoughtful and
passionate representation of the physical conditions
appointed for human existence. It imitates the aspects
and records the phenomena of the visible things which
are dangerous or beneficial to men ; and displays the
human methods of dealing with these, and of enjoying
them or suffering from them, which are either exemplary
or deserving of sympathetic contemplation.'

On my return home, I found a criticism of M. Arnold
Boecklin's work in the 'Revue des Deux Mondes' for
November, 1897, by a fellow-countryman of his, M.
Edouard Rod. He describes how admiring crowds
came from all parts of Switzerland and the adjoining
countries, as if for a pilgrimage, to see the loan collec-
tion of Arnold Boecklin's paintings, brought together
that year and exhibited on the occasion of his having
attained the age of threescore and ten. Many strangers
came, somewhat doubtful as to the admiration to be
bestowed on a painter almost entirely unknown out of
Germany and German Switzerland. But the display
seems to have convinced all that the work showed
wonderful power and originality, executed in a novel
manner. He was born rich and became poor, and for
years his art seems to have had a hard and uphill fight
with the world that did not appreciate him, and poverty

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that dogged his steps from Rome back to Bale. At last
he went to Munich, where the distinguished novelist,
Paul Heyse, seems to have held out to him a friendly
and helping hand. Must one believe that success is
necessary to an artist? The fact is that Boecklin
never really became himself till his individuality was
recognised. His best works all belong to this latest
period, and his admirers hope for him an illustrious old
age. M. Edouard Rod adds: 'In looking at his later
works I thought, what a beautiful thing is old age when
it remains healthy, brave, and laborious. I thought of
those luminous evenings that sometimes are the end of
glorious summer days.' Boecklin 's work will be all the
more interesting in the days that are to come, because it
is singularly devoid of French influence. In a closing
sentence of an admirable article on the Millais Exhibi-
tion, Mr. Claude Phillips says : 'A vast wave, starting
from France as a centre, is now more or less rapidly
spreading itself over the whole expanse of the civilised
globe, enveloping even us, who, with a wise obstinacy,
most strenuously interposed our barriers of race and po-
sition as a defence. If it continues to advance, steady
and resistless as heretofore, will there not, before the next
century has spent half its course, be practically but one
art ? ' But, as time goes on, will not individuality always
assert itself, and may we not hope for Boeeklins in the
future who will struggle and be free of all schools, even
the French?

July 12ih. — After Bale I came back once more to
Cronberg. Nothing is so interesting, next to one's own
garden, as the gardens one knows well, belonging to
one's friends, especially when they have very different
situations and soil. At Cronberg the soil is very strong
and tenacious, and bakes into a hard crust, about as
different to my Bagshot sand as can be imagined. In

JULY 39i

all I say or recommend, it is most important to remem-
ber that in stiff, heavy soils, everything that grows well
with me would do badly and require a perfectly different
cultivation. The amateur should always recognise that
when things do badly it is probably because of some
mistake in cultivation, and that it is always worthwhile
to try some other method.

I went for the first time to the famous 'Palmen-
garten,' at Frankfort, which, in its way, is really
beautiful, and a very well-kept, interesting public
garden -7- half pleasure garden, half botanical. The
greenhouses are clean and orderly, and arranged in
much better taste than they would have been at home.
There is much more attempt at grouping foliage plants,
Mosses, Ferns, etc., than one generally sees. The same
with the outdoor planting ; though artificial and formal,
it was done with considerable thought and originality,
the beds being thoroughly carpeted to keep away weeds,
which in that style of gardening is the only possible
plan. The colour contrasts were good; a brighter, hotter
sun than ours, together with much watering, perfects
this kind of garden. I found planting of effective
groups in the grass was a distinct feature in gardens
about Cronberg, and better done than I have ever seen
in England, save in very exceptional cases. It is an art
that can rarely be understood by gardeners, as I think
it requires a certain amount of real art -training to be
able to imagine effects, both of form and colour. A well-
planted White Variegated Maple ought to be in every
garden, but it should not be allowed to get large and
coarse. A contrast should be planted near it in the
shape of broad -spreading leaves of some strong-
growing, dark-foliaged plant.

A much more delicate mixture, is a small red-leaved
Japanese Maple and the Spiraea Ulmaria, the common

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British Meadow-sweet. In strong soils this is a lovely
combination on grass. In this kind of planting, it is
most important to remember that if two spiral or two
bushy things are planted together they interfere with
the grace of form which is aimed at. In the just
mentioned plants the small red Maple would stand out
strong from the grass, and would represent massiveness
of form and colour. The well -grown specimens of the
Spirasa — sure to do well, as they are wild plants — repre-
sent the grace of spiral growth and light, soft, white or
cream colour. I find Eucalyptus Gunnii the hardiest of
all the gum trees, and most especially pretty in colour
and form for this kind of gardening ; and it is also good
for picking, as it lives well in water. These contrasts
may be carried out in endless variety, even in small
gardens.

When in Germany I was much struck by a green-
house full of the healthiest tree and winter -flowering
Carnations I have ever seen. The gardener told me that
the secret of the entire absence of injured leaves and
spots from rust was, that from July onwards, whether
they are in pots or planted out, he syringed them once a
week with the following mixture, which is also good for
many other plants that are often blighted, especially
Hollyhocks and Madonna Lilies :

Mixture for Killing: Carnation Disease.— (1) Two
pounds of vitriol (copper); (2) four pounds of lime,
fresh slaked; (3) twenty -seven gallons of water; (4)
two pounds of sugar. (1), (2) and (3) should be mixed
together till no longer blue, but clear. Then mix the
sugar with the rest. Syringe with an insecticide every
week in the early afternoon. The syringing should be
done quickly and finely. The ordinary garden syringe
with a fine rose does quite well.

Here is the real Bordeaux mixture, slightly different

JULY 393

from the last receipt, used throughout the whole of
France against the phylloxera on the Vines ; it is also a
cure for the Potato disease :

Bordeaux Mixture. — Dissolve three-quarters of a
pound of carbonate of copper in a little warm water ;
place it in a vessel that will hold six gallons of water.
Slake half a pound of freshly burnt lime and mix it
with the water so that it is about the thickness of
cream. Strain it through coarse canvas into the solu-
tion of copper. Then fill up 'the vessel with water.

With these two receipts, it seems to me possible to try
endless experiments on plants in any way affected by
disease or rust. I shall certainly try it on Humea elegans
when the plants begin to go off. For a few years I gave
up growing this charming annual, the disease always
making its appearance. I cannot bear being beaten
by a blight.

Everywhere on the Continent I find abundant
supplies of what used to be called Wild Strawberries,
the cultivation of which is receiving the greatest atten-
tion. The soil at Cronberg, being strong, is very good
for growing Strawberries. When I arrived last year the
main crop was just over, but the cultivated Alpines
appeared in large quantities at every meal. These
improved Alpine Strawberries last all through the sum-
mer and late on into the autumn. I never can under-
stand why this class of Strawberries is so much neglected
in all English gardens. They are rather troublesome to
pick, and have to be done with clean hands, as they
come to table without their stalks.

In the 'Horticultural Journal' for January, 1899, there
is a most interesting article by the great improver of the
whole family of Alpine Strawberries — M. Vilmorin —
which will do away with any excuse of not understand-
ing their cultivation. But I will not quote from it, as

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anyone can get the number of the 'Journal ' who is suf-
ficiently interested in the subject to wish for the last
word. Up to the present, I have never been successful
in producing fruit in any sufficient quantity to make the
growing of these Strawberries seem worth while, but I
mean to try, with improved knowledge, to see if it cannot
be done even on this sandy soil. A neighbour of mine
has been most successful ; but a vein of clay runs
through his garden, which is a helpful point, not to
mention his greater knowledge and experience on the
subject, having previously grown them in France. He
kindly wrote out for me the system which he practises
in the growing of this most useful and healthful little
fruit, called the 'Improved Alpine Strawberry': 'To
obtain these large and abundant, it is necessary to grow
them on young plants (certainly not more than three
years old) and plants originally grown from seed. The
fruit degenerates rapidly if grown on runners from an
old plant. Select the best seed. I grew mine from Vil-
morin's No.l7,239—fraisierdesquatres saisons' ' Berger"
—0.60 centimes per packet. This is cheaper than your-
self selecting, maturing, and preparing the seeds, which
probably would mature less thoroughly here than under
the hot summer sun in France. Sow in March, in a
shallow box or pan under glass, well watered, in soil as
follows : One half of thoroughly well -rotted leaf -mould,
one quarter of sand, one quarter of light loam. Cover
with a glass, as usual, until they begin to grow. Very
moderate heat. Prepare, in a well -sheltered border ex-
posed to the sun, a strip of soil two and a half feet wide.
Mix in plenty of well -rotted manure from an old hot-
bed with the light loam of the open border. Plant the
young seedlings in a row down the middle of this strip
about five inches apart. Water them well, and shade
them for a few days till their roots have taken good hold

JULY 395

of the ground. Then they will grow rapidly and pro-
duce large leaves and strong runners, which must be
laid out across the piece of ground on either side of the
plants. Any runners beyond this first break should be
cut off. The runners and the plant are left to grow
together till about September, when the offsets will
have rooted and grown, and the strip of soil will be
covered with rich leaves and strong, healthy young
plants. In winter, or early next March, prepare the bed
in which they are intended to fruit : light loam with
fair quantity of old leaf -mould or rotted old hotbed
manure. There should not be more than four rows in
one bed without a small path, in order to facilitate the
cropping and the cutting -off of runners later on. The
rows should be fifteen to eighteen inches apart, and in
these rows plant, in March, the rooted runners of the
seedlings, with as good balls as you can get. They will
begin to bear about July, and will go on bearing until
the frost comes in October or November, if they have
been kept well watered in hot weather, and the runners
trimmed off. In November cut off any remaining run-
ners, mulch them well, and they will stand all through
the winter. The second year they will bear, from May
to November, good, large fruit about an inch long and
half an inch across. They should be gathered with clean
hands and allowed to drop off their stalks into the
basket. If they do not drop to-day, they will next day
or the day after, as they should be quite ripe. They will
stand plenty of sunshine if they are watered in propor-
tion to the heat of the weather. The fruit -bearing
stems, in the best kinds, are strong and stand up above
the leaves, so that the bloom coming on may be in full
light and warmth. The leaves should never flag. Treat
the bed the same way in the next winter, mulching, etc.
This is the result: First year, sowing and producing the

396 MORE POT-POURRI

plants ; second year, a good half -crop, July to Novem-
ber ; third year, a spring crop and autumn crop. The
fourth year the autumn crop will not be so large ; but if
they are sown every year, as they should be, a subse-
quent sowing will be bearing its first autumn crop. It is
possible to try a late summer sowing to crop the follow-
ing autumn ; the runners must be taken off in the same
way. Although the plants bear any amount of frost, a
short, light frost during blooming time will turn the yel-
low centres of the flowers black, which means no fruit
there. It is well, therefore, to be able to protect the beds
by tiffany or bracken fixed between two laths. It is well,
also, to have some natural shelter against the north and
northeast winds.' This last sentence is a most useful hint
for any Strawberries, and I shall certainly adopt it, as my
first crop is constantly destroyed by these spring frosts.

While in Germany I saw beautiful beds of these
Alpine Strawberries bearing profusely. The gardener
told me that the way he managed them was to strike the
runners off the young plants early in August and plant
them for the winter under a wall, water well till rooted,
mulch for the winter, and leave in the same place till
April. Prepare a bed then in full sunshine with plenty
of good cow -manure. Take up the young plants from
under the wall ; plant them in the bed a foot apart,
alternating the next row ; mulch again, and water
copiously while the plants are flowering. Pick off all
runners except those required for propagation.

The only real difference between this and the former
receipt is that the first one prescribes the constant sow-
ing and taking runners from the young plants, whereas
the German gardener, apparently, took his runners from
older plants. This difference would be quite accounted
for by the difference between a soil naturally suited to
Strawberries and one that is not.

JULY 397

Last year I heard of an American way of growing
Strawberries, a man in New York having made a large
fortune by inventing the following method : A petroleum
barrel is made clean by burning it out. Holes, about
two inches wide, are drilled into it in alternate rows
from base to top, at intervals of about six inches in all
directions. The barrel is then raised on bricks or
stones, ample holes having been bored in the bottom of
the cask for drainage. The bottom is filled with crocks
and broken pots, and then a layer up to the height of
the first holes is filled in with good mould. The Straw-
berry runners, well rooted, are planted by drawing the
crown of the plant through the hole and spreading out
the roots. Then fill up with soil till you reach the next
layer, and so on up to the top. The top is not filled to
the very rim, so as to admit of rain soaking down, and
to hold the watering and liquid -manure soaking which
it requires in the spring. A small drain -pipe should be
let in, down the middle of the barrel, to ensure the water
and liquid -manure reaching the lower plants in sufficient
quantity. I am bound to own that my gardener says
the cask did not ripen well last year ; but I was not
here, so I cannot say what was the reason. I suspect it
was that the moisture did not penetrate sufficiently into
the barrel. I have planted two more tubs this autumn
in the same way with ' Viscountess' and ' Royal Sov-
ereign,' and shall await results. It is just possible there
is not sun enough in this country to ripen them grown
in this way, though I do not believe it. The advantages,
if successful, would be great economy of ground, the
fact that you can water without fear of drawing up the
roots, that no straw or cocoanut fibre is required to keep
the fruit clean ; and I imagine, grown in that way, the
birds would not touch the fruit.

I saw two pretty decorations for a luncheon -table in

398 MORE POT-POURRI

Germany. One was : four baskets painted white, with
high handles and sprays of any small mixed flowers
that do not fade quickly tied to the handles, the baskets
well piled up with common summer fruit— Strawberries,
Currants, Raspberries, Cherries, Gooseberries— each in a
separate basket, and a small vase with the same mixed
flowers in the centre.

The other — a pretty, daylight table decoration — was a
vase in the middle, filled with blue Cornflowers (which
of course grow wild in Germany) , standing out on a
ground -work of Maidenhair. There were small vases
round with wild yellow three -fingered Trefoil, or any
other yellow wild flower, such as Buttercups. Between
the dishes of fruit were laid on the table sprays of
Maidenhair, Cornflower, and yellow flowers together.

RECEIPTS

Timbale Napolitaine.— To be served either in a
silver casserole or in an open French high pie -crust,
shaped like a flower -pot, and filled while baking with
dry peas to keep it in shape. Boil a small quantity
of medium -sized macaroni ; drain it well. Take two
sweetbreads, scald and trim well, parboil, and cut into
regular pieces about half an inch square. Make a good
brown sauce (not too dark), to which add two or three
spoonfuls of concentrated tomato puree, some good fresh
mushrooms cut in dice or strips, some truffles or morels,
and tiny little quenelles of chicken breast (if you have
any cold chicken to use up). Put the sweetbreads into
this thick sauce. Mix all well together, let it stew
gently for a few minutes, then finish your macaroni in
the usual way with cheese, only using far less butter
than for plain macaroni. Now fill the silver casserole or
the pie -crust by putting alternate layers of macaroni

JULY 399

and of the stew. Finish at the top with a little layer of
sauce and truffles, and serve very hot.

The remains of this Timbale, if the sauce has been
kept thick and concentrated enough from the first, can
be made into excellent croquettes or rissoles by being
cut up quite small, with hardly any of the sauce mixed
with it. Shape as croquettes, roll in egg and bread-
crumbs, and fry.

Poulet a 1'Indienne. — Boil a large fowl in thin
chicken or veal stock, with two or three onions. When
done, take these out, strain the stock (which ought to
look quite pale and clear), cut the fowl in pieces, cover
with leaves of tarragon, add one or two to the stock,
pour over the fowl hot, and serve. Boil a large cupful
of Patna or Italian rice, strain, and dry. Make apart,
while the fowl is cooking, a curry sauce with onion,
butter, apple, stock, and curry powder (as described in
my former book) , no flour. When the rice is ready to
serve, stir enough of this sauce into it to colour it
thoroughly without making it sloppy or greasy. I saw
this once at a French luncheon party, and it was called
Poulet a Vlndienne, though of course it is not Indian in
our sense at all. I have often done it successfully, but
never had a receipt for it.

Croutes of Ham and Beans.— Take four ounces of
lean ham and grate or chop very fine. Put it into a
stewpan with a little cayenne pepper and a spoonful of
sherry; then dish it upon small fried crodtes of bread.
Dish round these apurte of broad beans or white haricot
beans. Serve hot.

Lentils. — Put a breakfastcup of Egyptian lentils into
a saucepan, cover with about an inch and a half of
water, boil very slowly for an hour. Heat half a tum-
bler of the best olive oil in a small saucepan. Cut up
very small half an onion, and fry it till yellow in the oil.

400 MORE POT-POURRI

Pour the whole on to the lentils, and let them boil
another half -hour. Wash and pick a good handful of
Italian rice. Dry on a cloth, and mix with the lentils
when the rice is cooked. Add a little salt and pepper,
and serve.

French beans or scarlet runners well boiled in salt
and water, slightly drained, and then mixed at once (all
hot) with olive oil and very little vinegar, and eaten as
a salad, are much better than when allowed to get quite
cold. I think this is the same with all cold vegetables
— beetroot, asparagus, beans, etc. Our weather so sel-
dom admits of quite cold things being palatable. These
receipts, however, are useless unless the olive oil is of
the best. I always buy my oil and vinegar from Mrs.
Ross, Poggio Gherardo, Via Settignanese, Florence.

A Chocolate Pudding-.— Take five ounces of fresh
butter; four ounces of chocolate, grated ; four ounces of
pounded sugar ; one ounce of flour. Mix these in a
small pan with a cup and a half of milk. Boil till quite
thick, and then pour into a dish with five yolks of eggs
and some scraped peel of a lemon. Stir for half an
tour. Beat up well the whites of the five eggs, and add
them slowly to the rest. Smear with butter a conical
tin mould, sprinkle with cinnamon ; pour in the mix-
ture. Boil it for two hours in water. A cream sauce
flavoured with vanilla should be served with it or poured
round it.

Norwegian Fruit Jelly. — Take two pounds of red
currants and two pounds of raspberries (raw) rubbed
through a cloth to extract the juice. Measure the juice
in a good, clean wine- bottle, and pour it out. Put in the
rest of the juice, and fill up the bottle with cold water
so as to make two wine -bottles of liquid in all. Put
this liquid in a large brass saucepan, and add half a
stick of vanilla and three-quarters of a pound of lump

JULY 401

sugar. Put the saucepan on the fire. Mix five ounces
of the best corn flour and two ounces of Groult's French
starch flour (farine d'amidon) with half a bottle of cold
water. When quite smooth, pour it gradually, stirring
all the time, into the boiling fruit juice. Let the whole
boil until it thickens. Rinse out a china mould or basin
with cold water, pour in the mixture, and put it for
some hours in a cool place or on the ice. Turn it out,
and serve with cream.

Cherries and Semolina.— Boil four pounds of good
cherries in a quart of water till quite soft, then pass
through a hair sieve. Put the juice back on the fire,
with a piece of vanilla and half a pound of lump sugar.
Let it boil for twenty minutes. Take a packet of
French semolina ; drop in a sufficient quantity to
thicken the juice, stirring all the time ; when this has
boiled up, proceed as in the former receipt. Rhubarb
might be tried in this way.

Much the same sweet can be made in winter in the
following way: A pint and a half of red wine, and a
pint and a half of bottled fruit syrup. These must be
mixed together and brought to the boil. Mix four
spoonfuls of cornflour with a little cold syrup kept back
for the purpose, and stir this into the boiling liquid. It
is most important to keep stirring all the time. It must
be boiled for fifteen or twenty minutes.

Currants — red, white, and black — are excellent left on
their stalks, well washed, and then dipped into the white
of a very fresh raw egg, rolled in finely pounded sugar,
and put for one minute into the oven to dry.

AUGUST

A Horticultural Show in August — The old Chelsea Physic Garden
— Towns out of season — Flat-hunting in London — Overcrowd-
ing flats — Marble better than tiles — Curtains and blinds — A
long note on girls and young women.

August 9th. — For the first time in my life, I went to
a Horticultural Society Show at the Drill Hall, West-
minster, in August. The interest centered chiefly in
the new hardy Water Lilies which everyone with small
ponds or lakes ought to try and cultivate, I think.
There were a few new Lilies that I had never seen
before ; but what particularly attracted my attention
was an exceedingly good strain of my favorite Campan-
ula pyramidalls, exhibited by the Syon House gar-
dener, and flowered under glass. He afterwards gave
me an interesting account of how he cultivates them,
which I quote :

'I am glad you liked the Campanulas, but I am
sorry they were not quite as good as some I have
shown in previous years, as we forced some of the
plants, and they do not like much heat. There is no
special way of cultivating the plants. Those you saw
were sown early in April, '97, in pans in a coldframe,
and pricked off end of May into boxes, potted up six
weeks later into forty-eight pots, singly. Up to this
they had been grown in a coldframe, but from July
till October they were stood outside on ashes, but well
watered. In winter we place rough boards round these,
or stand in coldframes. Too much moisture is worse

(402)

AUGUST 403

than frost, and very little water is given in midwinter.
Early in March we place them in seven- or eight -inch
pots, and stand in the open or on ashes to keep out the
worms, potting in a good soil with a little manure, but
as firm as possible, and they then flower the end of
July or early in August.

' The flowers are purer in colour if they are placed
under glass when opening. We do not grow any plants
over sixteen or seventeen months. I would advise sow-
ing in March for flowering in following August twelve-
month. Ours is a very fine strain — the Syon House
variety — and a compact grower. I do not plant out at
all for conservatory decoration. By planting out and
lifting in spring, you would get larger plants.'

I am quite sure these flowers can never be seen in
anything like perfection except grown under glass when
the flower is appearing.

Not the least interesting sight was the variety in
shades of blue — some very soft and delicate -looking,
almost gray ; some a good china -blue. There were
many more of the white ones, and I find them rather
easier to grow.

Another way of growing the C. pyramidalis, espe-
cially any good colour you want to preserve, is to cut
up the roots and repot small pieces. I do not think
the plants will be as strong as those grown from seed,
but it is less trouble.

I was pleased the other day to read in the papers
that the old Chelsea Physic Garden has been saved
from being built over by the London Parochial Chari-
ties. The garden was presented by Sir Hans Sloane to
the Society of Apothecaries, on condition that fifty
new varieties of plants should be grown in it and
annually furnished to the Royal Society till the number
amounted to two thousand. These gardens and the

404 MORE POT-POURRI

Botanic Gardens at Oxford are the oldest of the kind
in England. The land at Chelsea was acquired by the
Apothecaries as far back as 1674. Evelyn visited the
Chelsea Gardens in 1685, and mentions that he saw
there a Tulip tree and a Tea shrub. Here, too, it has
been said, one of the first attempts was made to sup-
ply plants with artificial heat, the greenhouse having
been heated by means of embers placed in a hole in
the ground. Poor plants ! they must have been rather
smoke-dried, I fear. It was here, too, that Philip
Miller, the 'prince of gardeners'— so styled by Lin-
na3us — spent nearly fifty years. He managed the
gardens from 1722 to 1771, during which period they
attained a great reputation throughout Europe. Miller
was the author of the much -admired 'Gardener's
Chronicle.'

August 14th. — Towns are never so pleasant as when
out of season. Florence in June, and London in Au-
gust, how immensely emptiness increases their charm !

Flat -hunting in London is more bewildering and dif-
ficult even than house -hunting, so I was indeed lucky to
find one with perfect views, very high up, with a lift,
and just what I wanted in every way. I always have
thought the garret was the nicest part of a London
house. It has the best air and generally some sort of
view. A high flat has all these advantages, and the lift
does away with the fatigue of the stairs. A French
landlady once said, when we had panted up her five
stories to her airy apartment and complained a little of
the pull up: ' Le cinquieme n'est au cinquieme que pour
les monstres de la rue. C'est au premier pour les
Anges ! ' One does feel nearer the sky, and the gulls
fly by the windows in stormy weather. The cloud
effects can be endlessly studied, and often smoke rather
adds to than detracts from the beauty of sunsets, as Mr,

AUGUST 405

Ruskin puts it in that beautiful chapter on the truth of
colour in the first volume of ' Modern Painters' : ' When
Nature herself takes a colouring fit, and does something
extraordinary — something really to exhibit her power —
she has a thousand ways and means of rising above her-
self, but incomparably the noblest manifestations of her
capability of colour are in these sunsets among the high
clouds. I speak especially of the moments before the
sun sinks, when his light turns pure rose-colour, and
when this light falls upon a zenith covered with countless
cloud -forms of inconceivable delicacy, threads and flakes
of vapour which would in common daylight be pure
snow-white, and which give, therefore, fair field to the
tone of light. There is then no limit to the multitude,
and no check to the intensity of the hues assumed.
The whole sky from the zenith to the horizon becomes
one molten, mantling sea of colour and fire; every black
bar turns into massy gold, every ripple and wave into
unsullied, shadowless crimson and purple and scarlet,
and colours for which there are no words in language
and no ideas in the mind — things which can only be con-
ceived while they are visible — the intense hollow blue of
upper sky melting through it all, showing here deep and
pure and lightless ; there modulated by the filmy, formless
body of the transparent vapour, till it is lost impercepti-
bly in its crimson and gold.' All this, and indeed much
more, can be seen now and again from the top of a high
London house by those who have eyes to see and a heart
to appreciate. There are other effects — white clouds
sailing on pure blue, storm-clouds rising and dispersing,
and (in autumn) the sun lying like a little gold ball on
the mist, the lights glimmering through the fog in the
streets below, which are in darkness, whilst we dress
and breakfast without ever having to touch the switch
which produces the magic light. One more evening pic-

4o6 MORE POT-POURRI

ture is the new moon shining in at the windows, high
up and above a long, graduated space of evening sky
and a far, mysterious purple vista, half town -lights,
coming through the darkness as in one of Whistler's
harmonies, painted as he alone can paint such effects.
The distance is cut off by the black roofs and gables of
the houses opposite.

Hitherto I have always moved from smaller houses to
larger, which is comparatively easy. Changing from a
large house to a small flat is the most difficult thing I
have yet had to do. All the flats I have ever seen are,
to my mind, spoilt by being so much overcrowded, and
yet, in many cases it is for the preservation of property
that the flat or smaller house is taken at all. To help
the non- crowding of these small rooms, I got rid of as
many superfluities as possible. I reduced the bulkiness
and heaviness of curtains, and, where I could, made a
broad hearth with no fenders at all. I think tiles and
painted wood for fireplaces have been overdone of late.
I hope we shall return to more marble and stone. A
green Irish Connemara marble makes a beautiful hearth,
and this and other marbles could be adapted in many
ways where tiles have been used.

I find that many people have been puzzled by my ad-
vice to have inner curtains and no blinds. When they
are there, of course it is cheaper to keep the blinds.
One friend wrote that she could not make up her mind
to have no blinds, as she thought the little curtains at-
tached to the sash looked so untidy when pulled aside,
like a petticoat hung up. I do not think this at all, and
have lately found two stuffs which are most useful for
curtains in the place of blinds. One is green bunting,
which does not fade, and is very cheap, but narrow. It
can be got in several colours from Cayler & Pope, 113
High street, Marylebone, and I dare say at many other

AUGUST 407

places. It is very pretty in white. The green looks
well from the outside of the house, as does the red twill
I recommended before. White cotton-twill sheeting also
makes very pretty inner curtains. They are specially
pretty with outer curtains of white muslin. This in a
small room makes a very pretty effect, and there is noth-
ing to fade or to detract from the beauty of plants, etc.,
inside the room. My friend who was afraid to use the
small curtains said the only use of blinds is in case of
death. It is for that very reason I should like blinds
done away with. Drawing down blinds in cases^of death
seems such a foolish fashion, when in time of sorrow one
wants the help of all the sunshine that can be had. I
must own sash windows are difficult to manage with cur-
tains. I myself do not like them cut in two; but even
then they are not so ugly as smart blinds edged with
embroidery or lace.

Many ask if white paint, especially on staircases, does
not prove unserviceable. I think white paint knocks off
less than any other, and there is no wear and tear on a
staircase except on the carpet in the middle. It is very
desirable to have a piece over at both ends of the stair-
carpet, so that when it gets worn it can be shifted either
up or down. This is a touch of economy beginning
with expense, as it requires a little more carpet. I have
never heard it suggested by the shopman who sells or
lays the carpet. To return to paint, it is essential that
white paint should be good, which depends entirely on
using the very best white lead. This is perfectly well
known in the trade, but it naturally costs more than the
inferior qualities, and so is seldom used. I never use
varnish except in London, as even the best varnish al-
ways turns the paint yellow after a little time. I am
obliged to own that, though very cheap in the first in-
stance, my favourite whitewashed walls do seem ex-

4o8 MORE POT-POURRI

travagant, as they are not pretty unless constantly
renewed and kept spotlessly white, and that is what the
holder of the purse-strings will rarely agree to. White-
washed walls soiled by smoke look very unsatisfactory.
A paper will look cleaner after sixteen or seventeen
years of wear than whitewash does after two or three.

August 29ih. — Several of my young friends com-
plained that the chapter headed ' Daughters' in my first
book, though it sympathised with the woes of childhood,
was addressed rather to mothers than to daughters.
They say : ' We want a chapter about ourselves, on our
own difficulties and trials, on love and marriage, and the
proper conduct of life between seventeen and twenty-
five.' So now, partly from memory of my own experi-
ence (for I was a girl once) , and partly from observing
others, I am going to talk on these subjects as well as I
can, only referring as before to the well-to-do classes,
the only ones about which I know anything. Where I
find that my own thoughts have been expressed by
others, I shall deliberately quote ; and as these quota-
tions will be from the writings of both men and women,
some mothers may not think them suitable for the read-
ing of very young people.

So far as I have been able to judge, the first difficulty
which most commonly presents itself to a grown-up girl
fe her position with regard to her mother, no matter how
excellent that mother may be, and even when the girl
remembers the devotion she bore to her up to the age of
(say) fifteen or sixteen. When a girl is about this age
a barrier seems often to arise between them, usually
caused by some want of confidence on the girl's part.
The difficulty, however, is only aggravated if the mother
resents or is hurt by this reticence. George Eliot refers
to this subject with Titanesque touches. She says : ' We
are bound to reticence most of all by that reverence for

AUGUST 409

the highest efforts of our common nature which com-
mands us to bury its lowest fatalities, its invincible
remnant of the brute, its most agonising struggles with
temptation, in unbroken silence.7 But, on the other
hand, the same author thus describes the downward
career of one of her best -drawn characters : ' Tito had
an innate love of reticence — let us say, a talent for it —
which acted as other impulses do, without any conscious
motive, and, like all people to whom concealment is easy,
he would now and then conceal something which had as
little the nature of a secret as the fact that he had seen
a flight of crows.' Some natures are born so secretive
and shy that it is a real difficulty to them to speak out
or ask advice, so that they cannot learn in any way
except from that exceedingly bitter source — personal ex-
perience. I would advise the young to fight as much as
they can against concealment. There is of course one
subject which by its very nature can only live in privacy.
We all go through the stage sooner or later of under-
standing what love means, and we all think at the time
there is only one thing in the world of importance — that
our hearts should not be unveiled. But with genuine
and open natures this passes, and they end very often by
open confession later on of that which torture would not
have drawn from them at the time. Why reticence, to
my mind, is so bad is that it so quickly grows into de-
ception, and the smallest events develop into something
quite different from what they really were.

Yet no one can recognise more than I do the neces-
sity of some kinds of hypocrisy ; it is 'the respect that
Vice pays to Virtue,' and a form both of truth and
strength. ' The Englishman kisses and does not tell, the
Frenchman kisses and tells, and the Italian tells and
does not kiss ! ' — so went the old saying. Admitting the
facts, the concealment of the Englishman is the best.

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When one is young, one thinks just the contrary, and
people are very apt to say : ' If I have a passion, why
should I hide it under a bushel ? So long as there is
no concealment there is no harm.' This kind of argu-
ment may take people into very deep water. A parent
of reserved nature rather encourages concealment in the
children, and indeed thinks it 'beautiful,7 forgetting
that the children may inherit from the other side of the
family a need for sympathy and the expression of affec-
tion, and that these are as absolutely necessary to some
natures as food for the body. In my experience, I can
most honestly say that the people who have done best in
life are those whose temperament has enabled them to
talk out their difficulties with friends or relatives, and
who have learned to ask advice. Advice should be taken
to develop one's own judgment — and, as I said before,
need never be followed. It is useful to understand how
matters strike other people who are not personally con-
cerned. The non- understanding of this is often the
cause of a bad influence being exercised by one sex over
the other. It is more easy to pardon faults than to for-
give those who assume virtues they do not possess.

The mere forming of one's trouble into words makes
it seem lighter to bear. We have all sometimes, if not
often, known the extreme worry experienced on waking
because of some trivial thing we have done or left un-
done, which disappears entirely or assumes its proper
proportions after our morning bath. Talking out to a
friend often plays the part of the bath.

I can trace a change in my whole life from the kind-
ness of a Jewish old maid to me when I was a precocious
little monster of ten years old. We were at Leghorn
during a fearful earthquake, and the hotel where we
were staying, though not actually thrown down, was so
shaken and injured as to be considered unsafe to live in.

AUGUST 411

This good lady took us all in, and was kindness itself
to us. My heart went out to her with a genuine out-
pouring of love and gratitude, and when we left, having
observed my many little childish selfishnesses, she wrote
me the following letter :

' MY DEAREST THERESA : — As I feel quite certain you
really love me, you will listen with attention to the few
remarks I have to make, and at the same time convince
me of your affection by reading occasionally these lines
in remembrance of me. Now, dearest, I must tell you
that patience is one of the greatest requisites, not only
for our own happiness, but for everyone about us. Be
careful to keep that in mind. At meals (be you ever so
hungry) do not show impatience ; look round and ob-
serve whether those dearer than yourself have all they
require, before you think of yourself. This will prevent
your being selfish, which is of all things the most odious.
Think first of your dearest mother, for rarely in health
and never in suffering does she give one thought on her-
self. Therefore you, my darling, have but to follow her
bright example, and you will be an ornament to society,
a pattern of good breeding, and an example to your
infant sisters, who will look up to and listen to your
affectionate advice. Remember that love towards all
who instruct you is absolutely necessary, and patience
and good feeling for the servants will make them both
love and respect you. This is my affectionate advice to
you, my dearest Theresa ; and whenever you feel in-
clined to be impatient or selfish you will read this and
remember me.7

To my mind, this letter is an absolute gem as regards
the understanding of child -nature. There is no mention
of anything that could possibly make the little being

4i2 MORE POT-POURRI

of ten feel her youth or the writer's age. There is no
word of religion. Love terrestrial is the moving power
throughout. The motive for life suggested in it is not
exactly happiness, which none can command, but the
regulating of one's life, with ambition as an object.
The incorporation of eastern ideas into the West is re-
sponsible for much of that spirit which attributes all
evils to the will of God, as trials to be accepted with
resignation rather than difficulties to be fought against
and overcome, and, if possible, provided against before-
hand. 'Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof is a
saying that has, I think, been twisted into many senses
never intended.

Advice, however, may be offered too young, and
bear no fruit. I once heard a kind grandmother
preaching unselfishness to a little boy of four or five :
' No one loves selfish people ; you won't be happy if
you are selfish.' And he, the rosy -faced little rascal,
looked up and said, earnestly : 'Oh ! but, gran, that is
not quite true ; for I am so selfish and so happy ! '

Many mothers prefer to remain in ignorance rather
than find out that the tastes and views of their
daughters are different from their own. If, as is
sometimes thought, this difference is greater now than
it used to be, I cling to my opinion that it is largely
due to sending girls away from home for educational
purposes. Freedom and a good education have many
advantages, but the corresponding disadvantages should
be faced when the plan is originally decided upon.

Some years ago there came out a book, ' Le Journal
de Marie Bashkirtseff , ' which made a considerable sen-
sation at the time, and raised — so far as I could judge
— a good deal of anger and irritation amongst English
mothers of the day. It was accused of being strained,
exaggerated, and morbid; and so perhaps it is. One

AUGUST 413

accusation, I believe, was true — that the heroine made
herself two years younger than she really was, i.e., she
begins the journal nominally at the age of twelve,
whereas she was really fourteen. In spite of its faults,
I believe this book will remain for all time a most use-
ful introduction to the knowledge of that strange
being — a young girl, say, from sixteen to twenty-one.
Its exaggeration is that of a microscope, which reveals
nature without distorting it. This constitutes its
utility for all mothers who have girls growing up
around them.

A girl should bear in mind that it is quite possible
she is a cause of considerable disappointment to her
mother, and this possibility should be thought of
humbly and affectionately rather than with resentment.
For though, perhaps, it is due to no fault of her own,
the disappointment is none the less real to her mother.
She should do her utmost to make herself as pleasant
in her home as she can. What elders expect from the
young is a fair amount of willingly given assistance
and unselfish cheerfulness. Few things, I think, con-
tribute more to happiness in the home than a certain
power of conversation ; and, if it does not come natur-
ally to them, girls would do well to try and acquire it.
Any moderately intelligent woman can learn 'to talk';
and to be absolutely silent in society is not modesty,
but a form of selfishness, for it casts a gloom over
everyone present. The true greatness of individuals
lies in their own hearts, and conversation is as much
a question of kindness as of cleverness. Mr. George
Meredith, in 'Beauchamp's Career,' describes delight-
fully the charm of conversation in a girl. Of course
all cannot have this, but all can try for it : 'ReneVs
gift of speech counted unnumbered strings, which she
played on with a grace that clothed the skill and was

4i4 MORE POT-POURRI

her natural endowment — an art perfected by the edu-
cation of the world. Who cannot talk ! But who can ?
Discover the writers in a day when all are writing. It
is as rare an art as poetry, and in the mouths of women
as enrapturing — richer than their voices in music.'
With young girls silence often becomes a habit from
not being trained to join in the conversation of their
elders — a fault in many English homes. But if a girl
realises this is a mistake, she can get over it after she
is grown up if she chooses. If, on the contrary, she is
silent merely from being socially bored, she had better
learn that a very simple remedy for boredom in society
is to try and amuse others. There is sure to be some-
one uglier or duller or older than she is, to whom she
can devote herself. One of the chief uses of society is
the constant self -discipline it imposes. Depend upon
it, as George Eliot says, we should all gain unspeakably
if we could learn to see some of the poetry and pathos,
the tragedy and the comedy, lying in the experience of
a human soul that looks out through dull gray eyes
and that speaks in a voice of quite ordinary tones.
Such a thing is almost impossible to some girls, whose
great amusement in life is to chatter. This has its
charm to many ; but girls of this temperament should,
on the contrary, try to cultivate the art of listening, to
draw forth information from others, and to understand
their attitude without forming too hasty judgments.
'To communicate our feelings and sentiments is natural.
To take up what is communicated just as it is communi-
cated is culture.' A power to sympathise with others
is one to be much cultivated, ever remembering it has
to be paid for.

For he who lives more lives than one,
More deaths than one must die.

AUGUST 415

Happiness and cheerfulness were not at all cultivated
by serious -minded good people in my youth, who were
much affected by the teaching, even if not under the
influence, of the Quakers and Wesley. To be sad was
almost considered a virtue. The High Church move-
ment began the change, as I remember it, against the
gloom of the Low Church teaching. The practical
sense of the present day is now fighting the morbid ten-
dencies, which have taken a hold on so many, reflected
from the writings of Ibsen and Maeterlinck. Those not
naturally of a happy temperament should cultivate hap-
piness from within, not artificially assume it.

A lecture on 'Happiness,' given by Miss Lucy
Soulsby in 1898 (published by Longmans, Green & Co.),
is an excellent example of the teaching to which I refer,
and would, I think, be helpful to many a girl.

A very common grievance to-day between mothers
and daughters is that the girls while still young refuse
to go out into society at all, feeling how tiresome and
unprofitable it is. This is all very well if the girl has
mapped out her fate, and knows exactly what sort of a
life she is going to lead ; but if she is merely drifting, it
is only a form of selfishness, and rather a foolish one.
Until life is really settled, the more varied and open to
change it can be kept the better. After marriage, I am
sure the more people stay at home the better for ten or
fifteen years.

The state I have referred to of more or less antago-
nism between mother and daughter ought not to cause
the amount of distress that it often does. Time, the
great healer, constantly rights things again, and, as a
rule, a girl never turns with more true love to her
mother than just after her marriage. But my advice to
girls under these circumstances is to be conciliatory and
hide from others the irritation which often they cannot

4i6 MORE POT-POURRI

help feeling. This I should recommend, even if from
no higher motive than that the casual observer should
not judge them too harshly. It is a rooted idea in the
minds of many men that a bad daughter makes a bad
wife. Was not lago's strongest argument in the poi-
soning of Othello's mind against poor Desdemona,' She
did deceive her father marrying you' ? Not long ago I
heard a young man say : ' I mean to marry for a
mother-in-law — that is to say, I will never marry a girl
who does not love her mother, nor would I marry a girl
with a mother whom I thought unworthy of her love.'

The French, of course, exact an outward expression
of devotion from both sons and daughters unknown in
this country, and I doubt whether our literature could
produce a parallel passage to these opening lines of
Florian's poem of ' Ruth' :

Le plus saint des devoirs, celui qu'en trait de flamme
La nature a grav6 dans le fond de notre dme,
C'est de ch^rir 1'objet qui nous donna le jour.
Qu'il est doux & remplir ce pre'cepte d'amour !
Voyez ce faible enfant que le tr6pas menace ;
II ne sent plus ses maux quand sa mere I'embrasse.
Dans 1'age des erreurs ce jeune homme fougueux
N'a qu'elle pour ami des qu'il est malheureux ;
Ce vieillard qui va perdre un reste de lumiere
Eetrouve encore des pleurs en parlant de sa mere.

Last summer, while waiting at a hot railway station
and pondering in my mind how I could bring together a
few notes that might help to solve some of the difficul-
ties in girls' lives, I caught sight of a little yellow publi-
cation on the bookstall, called ' The Modern Marriage
Market.' It will be remembered that this consisted of
four articles, by ladies, reprinted from magazines. I
bought it at once, thinking that these ladies would prob-
ably say what I wanted to say better than I could do it.

AUGUST 417

It was interesting to find that they severally took what,
roughly speaking, might be called the four sides of the
question, though the last article held the philosophic
view that, as with most affairs of life, there is much to
be said on all sides. Miss Marie Corelli holds up the
little blind god Love as the only one worthy to regulate
our lives and destinies. Lady Jeune is surprisingly
satisfied with things as they are. Mrs. Steel prefers
even eastern to western customs rather than ignore the
importance of the future generation. Lady Malmesbury
takes, as I have already said, a broader and more moder-
ate view as regards the pros and cons of the various
points at issue. Most people would agree that the mat-
ter is one on which it is almost impossible to generalise,
as so much depends on the enlightened bringing up of
the girl herself. The whole question has been treated
with stronger and more philosophic consideration in an
essay called ' Marriage,7 which I mentioned before, in Sir
Henry Taylor's 'Notes from Life.' His essay has the
additional advantage of being addressed to both men
and women, which is certainly to be desired. He begins
with a quotation from Webster's play, in which the
Duchess of Malf y asks : ' What do you think of mar-
riage ? ' and Antonio answers :

' I take it as those that deny purgatory j
It locally contains or heaven or hell ;
There is no third place in it.'

Sir Henry Taylor goes on to say that when he was
young he did not agree with this, but that increase of
years made him think Antonio's view the correct one.
It seems to me that the last fifty years have wrought a
considerable change in these matters. Nowadays mem-
bers of society, so far as I am acquainted with them,
consider it very inconsistent with their own dignity to

4i8 MORE POT-POURRI

admit that marriage has turned out 'hell' for them, and
see that a more philosophical attitude of mind enables
them to expect less and really find a great deal of happi-
ness on the lines of the quotation at the conclusion of
Lady Malmesbury's article : ' Two are better than one ;
because they have a good reward for their labour. For
if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow; but woe to
him that is alone when he falleth, for he hath not
another to help him up.' In my youth I used to think
that the gain in marriage was almost entirely on the
woman's side ; but as I grow older I am inclined to
think the advantages and the disadvantages to men and
women are nearly equal.

The crux of the whole position as regards the girl
seems to me to be hinted by Lady Jeune when she
implies that the mother should take the matter into her
own hands — if not of making, at any rate of unmaking,
marriages. And from this point of view, I think I have
something to suggest.

The questions that are constantly put to me on this
subject by girls more or less young, prove to me that a
great part of the difficulty arises from the injudicious
ignorance in which they are allowed to grow up. Let
us begin at the beginning. A young girl of eighteen or
nineteen once said to me : ' What is the harm of kiss-
ing ? ' And it is not altogether an easy question to
answer if the girl herself has no feeling about it. When
I was twelve years old my mother deliberately explained
to me that for girls to kiss boys and men was childish
and infra Uig.; that grown-up women thought most
gravely of kissing, and reserved it for those they loved
very much, and who had asked them to marry them.
This gradually puts the matter on a sounder basis. We
have to be much older to understand that ' kisses are
like grains of gold and silver found upon the ground, of

AUGUST 419

no value in themselves, but showing that a mine is near.'
On the other hand, some girls may think, in perfect
innocence, that a kiss means a great deal more than it
really does, especially as it is generally taken, not given;
and I have even heard of a girl of seventeen who
thought she was so lowered by having been kissed by a
man that she was bound to marry him to save herself
from disgrace. So one girl takes it ; another may think,
having once begun, there is no going back, and the
onward course is the only possible one. To another,
one accidental kiss may be only a great help and pro-
tection, teaching her by fear to understand and distrust
herself. This state of ignorance ought never to be in
a girl who has reached a marriageable age. If the stop-
ping of kissing is desirable at twelve, it is equally
important that at fifteen or sixteen the mother or an
elder sister, or some kind friend, should explain the
facts of nature sufficiently to prevent forever the possi-
bility of such distorted notions as to the facts of life.
There are hundreds of ways of expanding and enlarging
a girl's mind so as to increase, rather than diminish, the
modesty which is her greatest safeguard, and certainly
not the least of her attractions. Indeed, it is a favourite
theory of mine that the instincts of life are apt to grow
before their protector — modesty — which is more the
result of cultivation and civilisation than particularly
pertaining to what is natural. All prohibitions wound
liberty and increase desire. We, none of us, can defend
ourselves from a danger as to the very existence of
which we are ignorant. If a girl is trained to under-
stand that we are part of that great whole which is
called nature, and that, in fact, our common development
is shared by every flower that blooms, she is neither
surprised nor shocked when further knowledge gathers
round her as life expands. This, I believe, will serve as

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a very wholesome check against an overpreponderance
being given to the romantic attitude so much advocated
by Miss Marie Corelli. She describes marriage as the
'exalted passion which fills the souls ' of a man and
woman, 'and moves them to become one in flesh as
well as one in spirit.7 Mrs. Steel says, and I must say I
agree with her, that this so-called 'exalted passion' is
quite as often likely to lead to evil as to good.

Whether girls realise it or not, certainly an immense
number of them associate marriage with the very healthy
desire of having children of their own. With a little
further cultivation they will come to think of the man
they wish to marry as the father of these unborn chil-
dren ; and most women — even girls — can early discrim-
inate between the man they enjoy dancing with, and the
man they would like to be some day head of their house
and father of their children. This develops what I hold
to be of such great importance : that the girl herself
should feel respect, or at any rate approval, of the man
she thinks of marrying. There should be many solid
reasons for entering into so important a partnership
beyond the fact of love, even if that be ever so real.
At the same time, I do not mean to imply that the man's
moral standard in the past should necessarily have been
the same as the woman's. The man who understands
women extracts far more love from them — and so, in
the end, makes them happier — than the man who knows
little about them. I hold it to be a great mistake for a
man to have that kind of fear of the girl he is engaged
to, or of his wife, which leads him to think it is desir-
able to deceive her. That seems the great danger of
the tone of the present day, a woman expecting too much
of men.

One of the chief difficulties in talking or writing of
love is that the word may be interpreted in so many

AUGUST 421

ways. To generalise on love is almost as difficult as to
define it ; it means such different things to different
people. Girls who read novels and poetry are apt to
think that the fancy they feel for the first man they
meet is the great passion which they will never get over;
whereas, broadly speaking, strong feeling most often
belongs to inconstant natures. As I think of it, real
love never exists until it is tried by adversity ; but I am
the last to deny that the real thing — however you define
it — gives dignity and nobility to life, and makes it worth
living. ' C'est bien a P amour qu'il en faut venir a toute
e"poque, en toutes circonstances, en tout pays, tant qu'on
veut chercher a comprendre pourquoi 1'on vit sans
vouloir le demander a Dieu.'
Thomas Moore puts it :

When first the Fount of life was flowing,

Heavy and dark and cold it ran,
Every gloomy instant growing

Bitterer to the lips of Man ;
Till Love came by one lucky minute,

Light of heart and fair of brow,
And flung his sweetening cordial in it,

Proudly saying, ' Taste it now/

Mr. Austin has a pretty definition of love :

'Tis a fifth season, a sixth sense, a light,
A warmth beyond the cunning of the sun.

Another element ; fire, water, air,
Nor burn, nor quench, nor feed it, for it lives

Steeped in its self -provided atmosphere.

Doubt and fear were linked with it in very early
days, for Plotinus says of love : ' It is worth the labour
to consider well of Love, whether it be a god, or a devil,
or a passion of the mind, or partly god, partly devil,
partly passion.' Dr. South puts it: 'Love is the great

422 MORE POT-POURRI

instrument and engine of nature, the bond and cement
of society, the spring and spirit of the universe. It is
of that active, restless nature that it must of neces-
sity exert itself ; and like the fire, to which it is often
compared, it is not a free agent to choose whether it will
heat or no, but it streams forth by natural results and
unavoidable emanations, so that it will fasten upon an
inferior, unsuitable object rather than none at all. The
soul may sooner leave off to subsist than to love ; and,
like the vine, it withers and dies if it has nothing to
embrace.' Here are some lines by a French woman who
feels the sadness of love :

Car la douleur, he"las ! est 1'ombre de 1' amour
Et le suit, pas & pas, et la nuit et le jour ;
Elle est meme a tel point sa compagne fiddle,
Que Pamour a la fin ne peut vivre sans elle.
Or s'il en est ainsi, qui pourrait me blamer
Qu'ayant peur de souffrir je n'ose pas aimer ?

This kind of cowardice, however, lasts a very short
time, and the father's advice to his child, in George
Eliot's poem, comes much nearer to what we, most of
us, practise :

' Where blooms, O my father, a thornless Rose ?'

' That can I not tell thee, my child ;
Not one on the bosom of earth e'er grows

But wounds whom its charms have beguiled. '

' Would I'd a Rose on my bosom to lie !

But I shrink from the piercing thorn.
I long, but I dare not, its point defy ;
I long, and I gaze forlorn.'

4 Not so, my child — round the stem again

Thy resolute fingers entwine ;
Forego not the joy for its sister — pain.
Let the Rose, the sweet Rose, be thine.'

AUGUST 423

Here is one more example of the many forms love
takes — perhaps the noblest and the best: renunciation,
no matter why or wherefor, but for duty's sake. It is
one of Mrs. Browning's 'Sonnets from the Portuguese':

Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand

Henceforward in thy shadow. Nevermore,

Alone upon the threshold of my door
Of individual life, I shall command
The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand

Serenely in the sunshine as before,

Without the sense of that which I forbore —
Thy touch upon the palm. The widest land
Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine

With pulses that beat double. What I do
And what I dream include thee, as the wine

Must taste of its own grapes. And when I sue
God for myself, He hears that name of thine

And sees within my eyes the tears of two.

Tennyson's two lines everlastingly contain the true
test :

Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with

might —
Smote the chord of Self, that — trembling — pass'd in music out

of sight.

And now, to wind up the definitions of love, I will
quote from two clever modern novels. Lucas Malet, in
4 The Wages of Sin,' attempts to describe the little god,
who, we are told, still has something of the sea from
which his mother, Venus, rose :

' Love is quiet and subtle and fearless ; yet he comes
softly and silently, stealing up without observation ;
and at first we laugh at his pretty face, which is the face
of a merry earthly child — but his hands, when we take
them, grasp like hands of iron, and his strength is the
strength of a giant, and his heart is as the heart of a
tyrant. And he gives us to drink of a cup in which

424 MORE POT-POURRI

sweet is mingled with bitter ; and the sweet too often is
soon forgotten, while the taste of the bitter remains.
And we hardly know whether to bless him or curse him,
for he has changed all things ; and we cannot tell
whether to weep for the old world we have lost, or shout
for joy at the new world we have found. Such is love
for the great majority ; a matter terrestrial rather than
celestial, and of doubtful happiness after all.'

Mr. Mallock, in one of his clever novels, takes the
matter further in a way that may console those who
suffer from what appears such a wasted experience :
'A serious passion is a great educator. But its work
only begins when the pain it causes has left us. Strong
present feeling ' narrows our sympathies ; strong past
feeling enlarges them. Thus, a woman of the world
always should have been, but should not be, in love.
She should always have had a grief ; she should never
have a grievance.'

How true it is, even with the commonplace, glorified
at the moment by their suffering : 'On a tant d'ame
pour souffrir et si peu d' esprit pour le dire' !

While on this subject, for the sake of those who have
not the pleasure of knowing Mr. Wilfred Blunt' s poems,
I quote three of his sonnets. First, because I think
them beautiful ; and secondly, because they strike a
note, very well recognised by those who have a knowledge
of human nature, of the danger of too great suppression
in youth. And I hold the sonnets up as a looking-glass
to some, and those by no means the worst, that they
may recognise what perhaps will be the trials and temp-
tations of their own future. These poems describe very
truthfully the phases many women go through, in a
more or less degree, according to their kind — women,
who, to all appearances, are just like everyone else, who
lead their quiet, dutiful lives, in all sincerity and

AUGUST 425

honour. During my lifetime the fact has been much
more recognised that the temptations and trials of
women are not really so very different from those of
men, though in our civilised life they come to them in a
different way and often at a different age. This fact
was, I believe, well understood in the old world, though
covered over and distorted during the Middle Ages.
Here are the sonnets, so rightly called the 'Three Ages
of Woman' :

I.

Love, in thy youth, a stranger knelt tothee,

With cheeks all red and golden locks all curled,
And cried, ' Sweet child, if thou wilt worship me,

Thou shalt possess the kingdoms of the world.'
But you looked down and said, ' I know you not,

Nor want I other kingdom than my soul.'
Till Love in shame, convicted of his plot,

Left you and turned him to some other goal.
And this discomfiture which you had seen

Long served you for your homily and boast,
While, of your beauty and yourself the queen,

You lived a monument of vain love crossed,
With scarce a thought of that which might have been

To scare you with the ghost of pleasures lost.

II.
Your youth flowed on, a river chaste and fair,

Till thirty years were written to your name.
A wife, a mother, these the titles were

Which conquered for you the world's fairest fame.
In all things you were wise but in this one,

That of your wisdom you yourself did doubt.
Youth spent like age, no joy beneath the sun,

Your glass of beauty vainly running out.
Then suddenly again, ere well you knew,

Love looked upon you tenderly, yet sad.
'Are these wise follies, then, enough for you ? '

He said ; ' love's wisdom were itself less mad.'
And you : ' What wouldst thou of me?' 'My bare due,

In token of what joys may yet be had.'

426 MORE POT-POURRI

III.
Again Love left you. With appealing eyes

You watched him go, and lips apart to speak.
He left you, and once more the sun did rise

And the sun set, and week trod close on week,
And month on month, till you had reached the goal

Of forty years, and life's full waters grew
To bitterness and flooded all your soul,

Making you loathe old things and pine for new.
And you into the wilderness had fled,

And in your desolation loud did cry,
' Oh for a hand to turn these stones to bread !'

Then in your ear Love whispered scornfully,
'Thou too, poor fool — thou, even thou,' he said,

1 Shalt taste thy little honey ere thou die.'

As grown-ups have such difficulty in understanding
children, so do men and women find it hard to under-
stand each other. Many a young husband, often 'one
of the best,' deeply wounds and pains his wife quite
unintentionally. It is a mistake to be too sensitive ; we
must take people as they are. To most men it will
always be as Coventry Patmore so prettily says :

A woman is a foreign land,

Of which, though there he settled young,
A man will ne'er quite understand

The customs, politics, and tongue.

Owen Meredith translates the same thought in the
reverse way, and with a more personal note, thus :

Dearest, our love is perfect, as love goes !

Your kisses fill my frame and fire my blood ;
And nothing fails the sweetness each bestows

Except the joy of being understood.

If for one single moment, once alone,

And in no more than one thing only, this

Moreover only the most trivial one,

You could but understand me — Ah, the bliss !

AUGUST 427

One of the ideas I find most common in women, and
not only young ones, is that in starting a Platonic affec-
tion with a man, sometimes at a certain sacrifice to
themselves, they believe they do it for his sake, and that
they are raising his moral nature. I am very doubtful
whether the influence that comes through that kind of
love between men and women, which in these days is
called 'friendship,' ever works very much for good, as
the influence savours of that old-fashioned education I
have already condemned, which tries to make persons
what we wish them to be, in contradistinction to making
them understand that their only possible growth or
improvement must come through their own self -develop-
ment. Self-deception comes in when the woman per-
suades herself that she is helping the man to do that
which he could not do alone. This means that at best
she is only a temporary prop, which never yet strength-
ened anybody. The man who sees the position, and
wishes to continue the 'friendship/ always uses the
argument /that the matter rests with the woman, but
that if she gives him up things will be worse with him
than they ever were before. In a publication I have
already mentioned, called 'The London Year -Book,'
there is a long poem on social life with the title ' Flagel-
lum Stultorum'(The Flogging of Fools). In it I find a
passage which once more lays bare the absurdity and
false sentiment of such a position :

. . . Woman's saddest mental dower
Is not to know the limits of her power.
And thus 'tis chief of woman's wild intents
To know men's motives and their sentiments.
Believe me, gentle sex, there's not a man,
However mean his intellectual scan,
But comprehends us better far than do
The wisest, keenest, cleverest of you.
The street-boy understands, upon my life,
The Lord High Chanc'llor, better than his wife,

428 MORE POT-POURRI

So, when a woman turns her wits again,
And hopes to modify the ways of men,
I look to see, when faith and practice meet,
Her tears bedew the pathway to defeat.

Samuel Johnson, who married a widow twenty years
older than himself, and quarrelled with her on his way
to church, as he said he was not to be made the slave of
caprice, and was resolved to begin as he meant to end,
also said in after-life : 'Praise from a wife comes home
to a man's heart.' I am sure this is equally the case
with the wife. I have known many happy couples, but
never one that did not beam with joy at real praise and
appreciation from husband to wife, or wife to husband.
Of course, however, all flattery must be given with
discretion.

Every girl, after marriage, should expect to be not
understood, and to remember this is part of the mys-
terious scheme of life which probably, on the whole, tends
to good ; at any rate, it sharpens the interest of life.
How far do we not go to find 'an undiscovered country '?
Besides, if it is a trial it is lightened by remembering it
is the same for all. Lucas Malet seems to think it is
universal :

' Do two human beings, especially of the opposite sex,
ever fully understand one another ? Have any two ever
done so, since the world began ? History and personal
observation alike answer in the negative, I fear ; for,
alas ! the finest and liveliest imagination stops short of
complete comprehension of the thoughts, aims, predilec-
tions of even the nearest and best loved. In truth, is
not each one of us, after all, under sentence of some-
thing very like perpetual solitary confinement in the
prison-house of our own individuality?'

One of the many pranks love plays us is that, when
women love, one of their chief joys is to pour out their

AUGUST 429

whole souls — past, present and to come — thinking that,
because the man enjoys it and shows sympathy, he
understands ; but he does not a bit, and quickly forgets
all she has told him. One reason why the early months
of marriage are so often the least happy is that the two
individuals expect each to understand the other. Mr.
Lecky somewhere puts it that the art of a politician in a
great measure is that of skilful compromise, and that
someone whose name I forget 'was ever ready with the
offer of a golden bridge or via media in order to reconcile
effectually differences of opinion.' Does not this wisdom
equally extend to married, and indeed to all family life ?
If one of the two is always offering this golden bridge,
I do not see how things can go very far wrong. I have
known many married people of all ages — some older,
some contemporary, and some younger — and my aston-
ishment is that, on the whole, so few marriages have been
real failures. What gives the impression of failure to
the young is that they often judge of the happiness or
unhappiness of married life from the generation of their
parents. When people have been married for eighteen
or twenty years, the conditions of their lives are entirely
different from what they were in earlier years. Even if
mutual devotion is still there, the display of it is sub-
dued, and children instinctively assume that neither their
parents nor their parents' friends were ever in love with
each other. Also it is true that this middle life is fre-
quently the most trying time in the marriage tie. Early
love is over, time has developed the differences of the
two individuals, and they have not yet attained to the
more reasonable calm that often supervenes in later
years. And yet this half-way time is just what is pre-
sented to the critical eyes of the young as they are
growing up.

There is a love which never tries to call itself by any

430 MORE POT-POURRI

other name, and which in time may grow into a very
real and noble friendship. This is perhaps the most
perfect developement of happiness in marriage that can
occur, but no doubt it is rare.

Mr. Michael Field, in a little poem of great delicacy,
shows how Cupid may sometimes heal the wound he has
himself inflicted :

Ah, Eros does not always smite

With cruel, shining dart,
Whose bitter point, with sudden might

Rends the unhappy heart —
Not thus forever purple stained

And sore with steely touch,
Else were its living fountain drained

Too oft and over much.
O'er it sometimes the boy will deign

Sweep the shaft's feathered end :
And friendship rises, without pain,

Where the white plumes descend.

Mrs. Holland, in her charming letters, remarks on a
saying of Mr. George Meredith's in ' The Egoist7 : ' The
scene in which, while his mother's death is imminent, he
pictures his own, and wants to make Clara swear, is
extraordinarily good, and that word of hers — "I can
only be of value to you, Willoughby, by being myself"
— contains, to my mind, the very gospel of marriage.
So many marriages are more or less spoilt by the man
wanting the woman to be his echo — not his friend.'
Perfect friendship between men and women can only
come, I think, after love — not before it.

Jowett felt the extreme difficulty of friendship between
men and women, and said : ' Hegel was right in con-
demning the union of souls without bodies. Such
schemes of imaginary pleasure are wholly unsatisfactory.
The characters of human beings are not elevated enough
for them. The religious ideal, the philosophical ideal, is

AUGUST 431

far better than the ideal of female friendship. If any
pleasure is to be gained from this, it must be strictly
regulated — never allowed to pass into love or excite-
ment— of a noble, manly sort, with something of pro-
tecting care in it.'

Jowett also speaks of the sadder side of friendships,
which we have all experienced. Though friendship is
often represented as love eternal, it is not so at all, and
needs as much, if not more, maintaining than love of
another kind.

He says : ' I do not know whether friendships wear
out, like clothes — not if they are kept in repair, and are
not too violent. Then they last, and are a great comfort
in this weary world.'

As I am known to be a strong advocate of marriage,
girls often say to me : ' Do you mean that we are to
marry somebody who wants to marry us, whether we
really like them or not?' To this there seems to me
only one answer : ' If you are perfectly certain that you
like one man better than anybody else, you must get
over that before you can marry another. While this
strong feeling lasts, and to my belief it will last only so
long as, at the back of everything, there is some hope,
I would advise you not to marry anyone else — in fact,
under the circumstances, to think of it would be revolt-
ing.' Of course this is the same for men and women.
When this feeling has died down to a memory, almost
the most real, and yet the most unreal fact in one's
whole life, then I think a girl should try and make her
future by keeping herself for the best type of man who
may wish to marry her, not expecting to be ever again
— at any rate, in her youth — blindly in love.

A common saying, and one upon which I have seen
many people hang their lives, is Tout vient d qui sait
attendre. This is the version current in England. The

433 MORE POT-POURRI

correct French proverb is Tout vient d point d qui sail
attendre, which, however, does not alter the sense. I
have always considered it one of the most untrue sayings
with an appearance of wisdom that there is. The only
thing that surely comes to those who wait in this
manner is death. Stating this opinion of mine the
other day, someone else maintained that they took it in
another sense, and that the crux of its meaning lay not
in the word attendre, but in the word sail ('Everything
comes to those who know how to wait ' ) . Skill in wait-
ing, how to utilise to a given end all events that occur
— such waiting brings about the coming of desired
things. This was perhaps the original meaning of the
saying ; it is certainly not the accepted popular inter-
pretation of to-day.

One of the virtues that I think is over -praised at all
ages, in women especially, is constancy. Constancy is
splendid, and much to be admired where two people are
constant ; but where it is one-sided, and neither wanted
nor appreciated by the other sex, I think it is rather of
the same order as the non- changing of opinions in
Blake's comparison in 'Heaven and Hell': 'The man
who never changes his opinion is like standing water,
and breeds reptiles of the mind.'

Mr. Henry James says, with a strength that is almost
crushing to us women, who cling with such persistency
to our delusions : ' Illusions are sweet to the dreamer,
but not so to the observer, who has a horror of a fool's
paradise.'

Shelley gives us strength by saying : ' The past is
death's, the future is thine own. Take it while it is
still yours, and fix your mind, not on what you may
have done long ago to hurt, but on what you can now
do to help.'

Jowett, like most teachers of the young, placed a

AUGUST 433

great, it may be an excessive, value on success. It dis-
tressed him to see his pupils making a mess of life. He
wished them to take their part in the work of their
generation with energy and effect. And yet one of his
pupils writes, 'that it was Jowett, as much as anyone,
who taught me that work, not success, made life worth
living.' I quote this here in my chapter to young
women, though it is intended for men, because it applies
equally to women, and has a cheerful ring. Women's
work is seldom crowned with success, but it is always
there in some shape or another, ready for them to take
up ; and if they do so the result, if there is none other,
will at least be the strengthening and improving of
their own lives, not by escaping their trials, but by
learning to bear them better.

Goethe says : ' Everything that happens to us leaves
some trace behind ; everything contributes impercep-
tibly to make us what we are. Yet it is often dangerous
to take a strict account of it. For either we grow
proud and negligent, or downcast and dispirited ; and
both are equally injurious in their consequences. The
surest plan is just to do the nearest task that lies
before us.'

I do not believe the state of mind which improves a
woman's character ever comes without some intellectual
effort. Most women of a certain type generally fly to
music and desultory reading. Both these may be turned
to serious use. Both may be only another form of the
excitement which brings on reaction. Drawing and art
were the saving of me. The creative work and the
endless intellectual ramifications independent of — in
fact, active against — a society life made drawing most
useful to me. It does not much matter what the occu-
pation is, so long as it is a mental gymnastic — some-
thing which stretches and strengthens the mind, and

434 MORE POT-POURRI

consequently, I think, the character — something which
takes us away from the accusation which George Eliot
puts as follows : 'We women are always in danger of
living too exclusively in the affections. And though
our affections are perhaps the best gifts we have, we
ought also to have our share of the more independent
life — some joy in things for their own sake. It is
piteous to see the helplessness of some sweet women
when their affections are disappointed — because all
their teaching has been, that they can only delight in
study of any kind for the sake of a personal love. They
have never contemplated an independent delight in ideas
as an experience which they could confess without being
laughed at.; Many will smile at my thinking it neces-
sary in these days to make this quotation; but women's
natures remain the same — yesterday, to-day, and for
ever — and in certain phases of family life, and sur-
rounded by the difficulties they entail, George Eliot's
caution may be as much wanted by some young women
as it was, more universally, forty years ago. Of course
this is an entirely different thing from cramming chil-
dren in early youth.

There was nothing Jowett spoke of with so much
bitterness as useless learning. ' How I hate learning ! '
he exclaimed. ' How sad it is to see a man who is
learned and nothing else, incapable of making any use
of his knowledge ! ' If this is true of men, is it not
doubly true of women ? ' Is learning of any use ? ' he
asks himself in one of his notebooks; and the answer
is : ' Men are often or always unable to use it. It keeps
men quiet, it clogs their efforts, it is creditable, it grati-
fies curiosity ; but, for progress to mental improvement,
learning without thought or imagination is worse than
useless.'

Goethe says : ' To the man of superficial cleverness,

AUGUST 435

almost everything takes a ridiculous aspect ; to the man
of thought, almost nothing is really ridiculous.'

I quote Jowett's strong condemnation of useless learn-
ing, as it should put us on our mettle to learn in such a
way as is most likely to be useful to fill the vacuum
in our individual lives. But we must remember that
Jowett lived in an atmosphere where learning for learn-
ing's sake surrounded him, and the choice for him lay
between well-directed and misdirected learning. I
cling, however, to the idea that even somewhat useless
learning is better than none, as the mere effort to learn
does good.

Mothers who like keeping their girls at home, and
who see them content in a round of empty gaiety and
excitement, often say : ' I am in no hurry for my girls
to marry; they are happy and merry at home.' As
men's bachelor lives often unfit them for marriage, so
girls' lives are just as apt to do the same. They have
to fit themselves for either marriage or old-maidism,
and this is not done by prolonging unduly the life
described in one line by La Fontaine : La cigale ayant
ckantt tout V6U, etc. I remember my mother telling me
that she had rather pitied a sad -looking, elderly girl at
a Newcastle ball. Her partner remarked : ' Yes, no
wonder, poor girl ! she is just recovering from her
seven -and -twentieth disappointment.' This, of course,
is an exaggeration, but it is characteristic of what may
happen. After a certain amount of rushing about, a
girl should herself realise that she can no more live on
social excitements without deterioration than her body
can thrive on sal -volatile. These remarks must always
apply only to the large average. Women who are very
attractive to men, as I said in my first book, have the
ball at their feet, and, as regards the other sex, can do
as they like.

436 MORE POT-POURRI

One of the best, noblest, and most useful old maids
I have ever known once said to me : ' Why was I not
warned ; why did no one remind me that to most women
the chances do not come often, and that if we do not
take them while we are young and have something to
give, they do not come again, or not, at any rate, in the
way, that, being older, we can accept ? '

When women turn to practical work, their high hopes
are even more frequently disappointed than those of men
— so many things weight their career, and the sense of
failure is so frequently all that they reap.

Have you thought, in your moments of triumph,

Oh, you that are high in the tree,
Of the days and the nights that are bitter—

So bitter to others and me ?
When the efforts to do what is clever

Result in a failure so sad,
And the clouds of despondency gather

And dim all the hopes that we had ?

Have you thought when the world was applauding

Your greatness, whatever it be,
Of the tears that in silence were falling —

Yes, falling from others and me t
When the hardest and latest endeavours

Appeared to be only in vain,
And we've curtained our eyes in the night-time

Indiff 'rent to waking again T

Those who just miss their lives are those I pity. It
seems to me that, of all bad teaching, the worst is to
live only in the present, and try in no way to look to
the future.

Great sorrow or trouble, or loss of money or sickness,
seem mercifully to preserve in some women certain qual-
ities of youth which always remain attractive to men,
even far on into middle life. Such misfortunes embalm

AUGUST 437

the qualities which the more ordinary experiences and
pleasures of life destroy. Hence the unexpected and
deep love episodes at an age when young people imagine
such a thing is impossible. I remember quite well
thinking at eighteen : 'What does it matter what
women of thirty do?' Has not the world been lately
given an example of this kind of love, for which it will
eternally be the richer, in the Browning love-letters?

That clever old French wit Chamfort, when he was
reproached by a lady for not caring about women, an-
swered : ' Je puis dire sur elles ce que disait Madame de
C. sur les enfants : "J'ai dans ma tete un fils dont je
n'ai jamais pu accoucher" ; j'ai dans 1'esprit une femme
comme il y en a pen, qui me preserve des femmes comme
il y en a beaucoup; j'ai bien des obligations & cettefem-
mela.' I believe this kind of feeling keeps many, es-
pecially cautious men, bachelors. This is a mistake,
even from their own point of view, as these are the very
men who are apt to fall victims to strong fancies when
it is least wise for them to do so ; and when they are on
the borders of old age nature often has her revenge.

I quote the Chamfort story to remind girls that good
and sensible men require certain qualities in a woman
whom they are thinking of marrying, and the reason
why ordinary women are wise to consider twice about
refusing to marry young is that perhaps that gift of
youth is the only real thing they will ever have to give a
man. When a dead level of mediocrity is reached, think
how large is a man's choice, in England especially !
What is there in a woman of from thirty to thirty -five,
who has knocked about the world, flirted and amused
herself, given and taken all she could get, that should
particularly make a man desire to marry her? Her
freshness is gone, and her want of wisdom is often
sadly apparent.

438 MORE POT-POURRI

We all know ' Punch's' advice to a man about to
marry: 'Don't.' My advice is exactly the contrary.
I say : Do, and don't wait till love of your bachelor-
hood becomes too strong a custom. But except when
very young, in which case the wild oats will probably be
sown in an undignified way at the end of life, don't
marry exclusively for what is called love. Let the heart
and the head go together. For a woman, I think it is
wise and often right to marry a man out of a sort of
gratitude; it rarely answers for a man to marry for this
reason a woman who has loved him not wisely but too
well.

I do not, for one, entirely condemn the French customs
as regards marriage, though I believe they themselves
are modifying them. When marriages are a question of
reason and arrangement, I think it is better that such
things should be managed by the elders than by the
young people ; and if Englishmen of sense, when they
make up their minds to marry, would take the help and
advice of older women in seeking a wife, instead of
going about with the hope that they may be fancy-
stricken through the eye, I think more suitable mar-
riages would be brought about, both as regards character
and the very natural wish that the woman should have a
certain proportion of money to help the joint manage.

If a man who has married with his best judgment
really cares to win the love of a girl after marriage, and
takes pains to do so, he is sure to succeed— it is so
natural for a good, affectionate woman to love her hus-
band and the father of her children.

Of course if a girl, with no sense of duty, merely
sells herself to shine in the world, or for admiration and
notoriety, which she thinks she will get better married
than single, there is nothing to be said. Such things
will always be; but a girl of that type is rare, and al-

AUGUST 439

most as mischievous single as married. The type of
women that men often know most about was thus de-
scribed to me by a man. He gave it as his deliberate
opinion of women as he had found them: 'They are
curious creatures ; in religion they can believe fifty times
as much as any man. In love they only believe when
they see and hear you ; as soon as your back is turned
they scream and cry out you have abandoned them.
Before you come they want you, when you have gone
you have betrayed them, and they wonder that a man
cannot bear that sort of thing for ever. Do you call me
practical for speaking in this way? Very well, I am
practical — and tell you what I know.'

To go back to our original text, 'The Marriage
Market.' The writers of all four articles seem to me
too much under the impression that marriages are de-
cided by the parents. So far as my experience goes, in
England this is not the case. The girls take their lives
in their own hands, though often with very insufficient
knowledge. I have known girls who distrust to such a
degree the feelings they may have for a man who is rich
that they have actually refused him for fear they should
be influenced by worldly reasons, everyone about them
taking it for granted that they could never be so foolish
as not to marry him. Many girls think of marriage
solely as a means of escaping home duties, and assume
that the duties will be lighter after marriage than
before.

I hear many people condemn the girl who 'marries
for money'; and Marie Corelli vituperates against the
women who 'sell themselves,' as she calls it. This
seems to me unfair. Marriage and even love do not
alter a nature ; and if a girl knows herself, and is quite
well aware that she cares most for the things that money
alone can give her, I think there is more of wickedness

440 MORE POT-POURRI

if she makes the misery of the man she may like best by
marrying him if he is poor, than in accepting the rich
man if she can get him. I speak only of those whose
standard of life is a low one. What is supremely
idiotic, and distinctly the fault of the mother, showing
a general want of training, is to imagine that when you
marry a man for his money, whom you neither love nor
admire, you are to have as well all the joys of life which
no money can buy. The thing is ridiculous. There are
few who, like Danae, can have god and gold together.
Marrying for money or position may be a high or a low
line; it is often the only vent for a woman's ambition.
But if she does it of her own free will, thoroughly un-
derstanding and facing what she undertakes, in nine
cases out of ten she will carry it through and make the
best of it. The person who ' has gained the world ' is
perhaps the one least likely to throw it away. It is the
sentimental, warm-hearted, impressionable girl, who
marries some man of the world not knowing what she is
doing, who turns to someone else for consolation in bit-
terness of spirit when she finds out her mistake.

The tone of the day, as it is often represented in
ephemeral literature, is that, so far as the moral life
goes, the sexes should be equal. This has given rise to
a very natural feeling amongst girls : that it is a matter
of no importance which loves most or even first, the
man or the woman. The stronger feeling on the wom-
an's side is a phase of the relations between men and
women which always has been and always will be; but
the open acknowledgment of it is certainly much more
common now than forty years ago. Nothing changes
nature, and especially in youth it is natural for the man
to take the initiative. The cultivation of pride in a
woman is much to be desired, and would never deter a
man who was really in earnest in his pursuit. In fact,

AUGUST 441

we all value what is difficult of attainment. I found
this well expressed in an American periodical which I
took up by chance last year ; it was called ' The Way of
Man':

There was many a Rose in the glen to-day

As I wandered through,
And every bud that looked my way

Was rich of hue.
But the one in my hand,

Do you understand T
Not a whit more sweet, not quite so fair,

But it grew in the breach of the cliff up there.

A question I have frequently heard discussed by
people who perhaps would be the very last to be them-
selves in such a situation, is whether a woman with a
'past' is bound to tell it to a man who has proposed to
her, and whom she wishes to accept. A large proportion
of these people who now go in for 'equalising' the sexes
say, ' No ; she is not bound to tell,' and they argue that
a man does not lay Ms past before a woman when he is
engaged to marry her. It may be very unjust, but I
cannot see that the cases are parallel. The woman fears
that if she tells her story to the man, he will not marry
her. If this is really the case, her acceptance of his
offer is a species of fraud. To begin a life of partner-
ship under such circumstances means that the woman
puts herself on the level of a man who cheats his friend
at cards or sells him a bad horse. The reason why the
position of the woman differs from that of the man is
due to that unwritten law accepted amongst civilised na-
tions. The man who does not recognise this law will be
unaffected by the confession of her past ; the man who
does recognise it ought not to be deceived.

I think most girls of to-day understand that there is
a veiled side to many men's lives, and that a man's past

442 MORE POT-POURRI

has to be accepted, not cavilled at, by a girl who under-
stands life when she marries a man who is not very
young, and who has knocked about the world. She
would scarcely wish him to tell her details of passing
love affairs ; but I would go so far, without any insult
to him, as to recommend that a girl who knows what she
is doing should solemnly, and in all tenderness and love,
just before marriage, put the question to the man she
is engaged to whether his particular past entails any
serious ties upon him. By this I mean that she should
know whether he has children whom he ought to edu-
cate and look after, in order that she may not only
face the fact, but also help him to do his duty by them.
No secret should come between them, especially not one
which, if ignored, might perhaps bring forth future
trouble. If he has no such ties, so much the better for
everybody. If he has, she who is about to marry him
should share the troubles and privations that they entail.
So many problems in this life are solved by courage.
Facing such a position does not make it, whereas ignor-
ing it may weave difficulties and misery.

Optimism I have always believed to be the right rule
of conduct both for men and nations. Yet there is truth
in what I have somewhere read that it must not be an
optimism without intelligence. It should not be that
kind of optimism which, to keep cheerful, must blot out
menace by looking another way, and obliterate coming
peril by turning the back. Neither in private nor in
public life should it be the spurious optimism which is
part dullness of perception, part moral weakness, part
intellectual timidity, part something worse — I mean,
refusal to recognise approaching danger because open
recognition would have to be followed by the worry or
expense of prevention.

As I said before, it is so difficult to generalise — not

AUGUST 443

only because every individual case lias a different aspect,
but also because every ten years makes an entirely
different platform for our conduct of life. This seems
to me to be not sufficiently acknowledged. Once more I
return to a bundle of letters, to find one written by a
very old friend of our family, which talks of the decline
of life, from a man's point of view, in a way that is
individual and yet applicable to many :

' I quite agree with you that it is very disagreeable to
grow old, and I have always thought that if I had been
Providence I would have made life begin with dotage
and decrepitude, and go on freshening and improving to
a primal death. But as I am a humble individual, and
not Providence, I make up my mind to things as they
are. Neither old women nor old men can hope to be
loved amorously or sentimentally, whatever other love
they may obtain. I confess that for long years the
ruling feeling of my life was a love of women, and a
desire to be loved by them, not exactly with a passionate
love, but with a love having in it some touch of amorous
sentiment. It was for this that I chiefly valued my
youth, my intellect, my celebrity, and whatever else I
possessed that might help me to it. And it was through
loving women, "not wisely but too well," that I made
myself unpopular both with men and women ; for I
cared nothing about men, and they saw it and resented
it, and yet women are in the hands of men, and he who
would be popular with women should take care first to
get men's good word. Even if I had taken count of
this in time, perhaps, I should not have taken heed to it,
for I was rather reckless and heedless in my youth, and
more disposed to trust to fortune than to take means,
and perhaps I had also a sort of latent consciousness
that what I desired was not good for me, and thus was
I, in the absence of better safeguards,

444 MORE POT-POURRI

' From social snares with ease
Saved by that gracious gift, inaptitude to please.

'Youth is dead and gone at eight -and -twenty, and
one may mourn it for a year or two then ; but at thirty
it is time to rise and eat bread, and after fifty one no
more desires to be young than one desires to be the
Archangel Michael or Henry VIII. One does not desire
it, because one cannot conceive it. The past is so long
past that it is past being a subject for regret ; and as
to the future, one has to look forward to losing one's
eyes and ears and brains, and some of the powers of
one's stomach, but one has not the loss of youth to
look forward to, and that is one source of sadness
removed — and to me it used to be, thirty or forty years
ago, a source of sadness ; for I was very fond of my
youth, and cared more for it than for eyes, ears, brains,
stomach, and all the rest. Now they have a fair share
of my regard, and I shall be sorry for their decay. I
think you make too much of my imagination as a
resource. It is true that from time to time I join a
party of phantoms, and find them pleasant to live with
on the whole, though they sometimes give me a good
deal of trouble, and at other times wear my nerves a
little. But my main resource is in my business. Act-
ing to a purpose with steadiness and regularity is the
best support to the spirits and the surest protection
against sad thoughts. Realities can contend with
realities better than phantoms can . . . For the
rest, Sydney Smith's precept is "Take short views of
life." Henry Taylor expressed the same thing:

1 Foresight is a melancholy gift
Which bares the bald and speeds the all-too-swift.

' To invest one's personal interests in the day that is
passing, and to project one's future interests into the

AUGUST 445

children that are growing up, is the true policy of self-
love in the decline of life, and as commendable a policy
as it is in the nature of self-love to adopt.'

I have recommended no books for girls. The ques-
tion is much too big a one. But I cannot refrain from
saying that within the compass of one small book I
know nothing that comes up in wisdom and sagacity to
Emerson's essays called 'The Conduct of Life,7 and
'Society and Solitude.' He says: 'Youth has an
access of sensibility before which every object glitters
and attracts. We leave one pursuit for another, and
the young man's year is a heap of beginnings. At
the end of a twelvemonth he has nothing to show for
it, not one completed work. But the time is not lost.'
If this is true of young men, it is doubly true of young
women. Every experience is a growth, and every
growth tends towards completion of life rightly under-
stood. There should never be hopelessness and despair,
whatever happens. The future is always ours, to conquer
and make noble. No one can really crush us. Trodden
under foot, if we choose we may rise again better, even
nobler, than all the fortunate ones around us. It all
depends on ourselves. That is why I admire Mr. George
Moore's ' Esther Waters' almost above all modern novels,
although Messrs. Smith & Son, whose stalls are covered
with translations of French novels, refused to sell it.

In spite of age and experience, I feel that on all these
difficult subjects I have said very little that can be of
use to anybody. There is no receipt by which we can
regulate our lives. 'As our day is, so shall our strength
be ' is a fact to those who train their natures to meet
with courage the difficulties as they arise.

One of our old divines states that 'Our infancy is
full of folly ; youth, of disorder and toil ; age, of
infirmity. Each time hath his burden, and that which

446 MORE POT-POURRI

may justly work our weariness ; yet infancy longeth
after youth ; and youth after more age ; and he that is
very old, as he is a child for simplicity, so he would be
for years. I account old age the best of the three,
partly for that it has passed through the folly and dis-
order of the others ; partly, for that the inconveniences
of this are but bodily, with a bettered estate of the
mind,.; and partly, for that it is nearest to dissolution.'
I wish I could agree with Bishop Hall, but I do not. I
very often feel that quite the worst part of old age is
that it brings us near to dissolution. My sympathies all
remain with the young, and I only feel at times inclined
to cry out, with Thomas Moore :

Give me back, give me back the wild freshness of Morning ;
Her clouds and her tears are worth Evening's best light.

I fear everyone will think this is not at all as it
should be ; and I only feel it sometimes, and perhaps
even that won't last.

This is good-bye, dear reader. Collecting these notes
has given me pleasure and also cost me trouble. I can-
not do better than close them by quoting what were
almost the last lines ever written by my kind friend and
brother-in-law, Owen Meredith. I owe him as large a
debt of gratitude as one human being can owe another.
It was due to his friendly advice and his kind encourage-
ment that my mind was saved from that sense of failure
and disappointment so common— to women, at any rate
— in middle life. He taught me how all ages have their
advantages, and gave me courage to go on learning, even
to the end. He always seemed able to see the line of
the other shore with a brightness not granted to me :

My songs flit away on the wing :

They are fledged with a smile or a sigh :

And away with the songs that I sing
Flit my joys, and my sorrows, and I.

AUGUST

For time, as it is, cannot stay :
Nor again, as it was, can it be :

Disappearing and passing away

Are the world, and the ages, and we.

Gone, even before we can go,

Is our past, with its passions forgot,

The dry tears of its wept- away woe,
And its laughters that gladden us not.

The builder of heaven and of earth
Is our own fickle fugitive breath :

As it comes in the moment of b'frth,
So it goes in the moment of death.

As the years were before we began,

Shall the years be when we are no more :

And between them the years of a man

Are as waves the wind drives to the shore.

Back into the Infinite tend

The creations that out of it start :

Unto every beginning an end,

And whatever arrives shall depart.

But I and my songs, for a while,

As together away on the wing
We are borne with a sigh or a smile,

Have been given this message to sing —

The Now is an atom of sand,

And the Near is a perishing clod :

But Afar is as Faery Land,

And Beyond is the bosom of God.

447

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